How It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Norton
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is generally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Norton. The rest of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
No single liquid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels around Norton and Mumbles carry, with diesel feeding the motor. The exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Some motors keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place both side by side under one flap. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. The mistake lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Norton: how it occurs
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
On a drive off Glen Road before work, or in the car park at The Beaufort Arms heading home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it is gone, limp mode follows.
New-to-you cars are next, as well. Hire cars, new vehicles and company cars place their fillers in new places, and the hand goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It takes a few seconds, be it out in West Cross or bang in the heart of Norton.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Langland or a forecourt around Norton, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many motors show which goes in which filler right there.
- Can't see it beside your diesel inlet? Then check below the bonnet or in the boot — the handbook will say which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Swansea? Check with the person who drove it last before leaving, rather than when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
Anywhere in Swansea the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Bellevue Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, yet it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Stop once your tank fills or the bottle is empty; until then, tip slowly through the own spout.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and look again that your diesel cap never opened off.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Norton?
Short order, then. Top of it: the motor remains off. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. Don't top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the staff to help push your car clear of the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Newton Garage, the Texaco or somewhere else. If you are on your own drive in Norton, leave the car where it is.
Already run? Stop once it's safe, then switch off. Norton sits under 10 miles from the M4; there, take the next exit. A short hop across Norton is a smaller job than a run towards Swansea, under 5 miles away, so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival around Norton, and what happens next
We come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside the local primary school, close to Oystermouth Chapel or on your own drive. The replies decide the work and the price, so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. You get that price by phone, before anyone heads out.
Then your tank is cleared and the fuel system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Once the filter is cleaned — or replaced, if required — clean diesel is added, and finally the vehicle is tested. We don't leave until it has been started and is running smoothly.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine hasn't run take about half an hour after our technicians arrive. Nothing upfront; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Norton
Norton is a suburban area in Swansea, situated on the coast of south Wales at an elevation of 54 metres. Norton lies approximately 4 miles west of Swansea city centre, near the communities of West Cross, Newton, and Oystermouth. Norton is characterised by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, reflecting the residential development of the area. Norton is part of the larger Swansea urban area, with the city's amenities and services within easy reach.
AdBlue drains around Norton and across Swansea
As a residential suburb, Norton shares its vans nearby places — Newton, Oystermouth — all the way through SA postcodes and the surrounding area around them. A postcode starting SA3 5 gets the van to you fastest.
The vehicle doesn't need to shift. Anywhere it sits — near Oystermouth Castle, in a layby heading to Woodside Woods, on a drive — that is where it gets emptied. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of West Cross Community Centre.
Norton motorists: the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave the car switched off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, throughout Swansea.