How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Neath Abbey
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Around Neath Abbey, finding it before the motor turns normally means draining and a full flush on the spot. The remainder of this page explains why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel goes to your engine — but plenty of current diesels driven around Neath Abbey and Skewen carry another liquid too. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the arrangement on many cars. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. Much less frequently, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between them.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur in Neath Abbey?
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from your car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Longford Road, or at The Smiths Arms on the way home that evening.
Next, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
No part stops the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it takes place in Melincryddan or the middle of Neath Abbey, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Tyn-y-caeau or a forecourt around Neath Abbey, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: plenty of vehicles have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park at Neath, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
When the light goes on, wherever across Neath Port Talbot, follow this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Dan-y-Graig Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, but it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Leave out stage five altogether.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Neath Abbey?
Do not start your engine: that is where the short order of things begins. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the car on. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car clear of the petrol pump if you're at a forecourt — the Tesco, the Morrisons or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Neath Abbey.
Where the engine has run by now, stop somewhere safe and turn the car off. On the M4, under 3 miles from Neath Abbey, that means the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Neath Abbey is less work than a trip of under 10 miles towards Swansea, and so tell us.
When our engineers get there in Neath Abbey, what happens?
The van comes to your car wherever it stopped — your own drive, beside Neuadd Goffa Dyffryn Clydach Memorial Hall, or outside the local primary school. The answers determine this work and our quote, and so we ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. Nobody sets off before you've heard the quote by phone.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is cleaned or changed as needed. The engine is fired up next and tested to confirm it runs correctly, all before we leave.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. No money upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. It's worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Neath Abbey, for a moment
Neath Abbey is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Neath Port Talbot, with a mix of detached housing and local amenities. Neath Abbey sits at an elevation of 29 metres, close to the town of Neath and approximately 5.8 miles from the city of Swansea. Neath Abbey is part of a larger urban area that includes nearby places such as Melincryddan and Rhydding. Neath Abbey has a population of around 3338 people, living in a predominantly detached housing stock.
AdBlue drains around Neath Abbey and across Neath Port Talbot
Neath Abbey is a residential suburb, and the vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Neath and Rhydding among them, across the SA postcode area. Give a postcode that starts SA10 7, and the van gets there quickest.
The car remains put. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Ebenezer Evangelical Church, a lay-by on the way to Cwrt Herbert Playing Fields, a drive. Guessing won't help behind the far end of the built-up part, close to a border, or somewhere awkward to describe; phone and ask.
The short version for Neath Abbey motorists
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere around Neath Port Talbot.