Why It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pen-y-groes
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Pen-y-groes. Here in advance? Then the rest explains how it comes about and what to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Many newer diesels around Caer-bryn, as well as Pen-y-groes, carry on two liquids; the motor gets only your diesel. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Different tanks, separate fillers. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on every forecourt call-out, again and again. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think what filler to use. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Pen-y-groes
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things lining up together.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and letting it run out leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Bridge Street, perhaps at The Phoenix on the way home that evening.
The old car's cap is where the hand reaches — but a rental car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is a second factor: a strange motor.
Nothing halts the pour after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The Gate or the middle of Pen-y-groes: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these first, at a forecourt around Pen-y-groes or a drive over in Gorslas. A few seconds, no more.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually don't.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- Can't see it beside your diesel filler? In that case check below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook will say where.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask as you collect a hire car or fleet car — at Llandybie's car park, perhaps — not once the warning appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
When the light comes on, wherever across Carmarthenshire, follow this routine.
- Switch off after you park — flat ground, engine stopped, and not rushed beside Heol Norton at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Stop once the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip gently through its built-in spout.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Find at the second or third step that the bottle went into the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Pen-y-groes?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the Texaco, the Esso or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Pen-y-groes.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. On the M4, under 5 miles from Pen-y-groes, that means the next exit. A short hop across Pen-y-groes is a smaller job than a run towards Swansea, under 15 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Pen-y-groes, and what happens next
Our technicians come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside the local primary school, close to Penygroes Congregational Chapel or on your own driveway. What liquid got in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask since those replies decide both work and price. On the call itself, you hear the price — ahead of dispatch.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals build up, certain metals corrode, and none of that clears out unaided, however long it sits. Testing comes last: before that, clean diesel is added, and your filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. The motor is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before we head off.
With pumps safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor has not run need roughly half an hour once our engineers arrive. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Pen-y-groes itself
Pen-y-groes is a village in Carmarthenshire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 179 metres. Pen-y-groes lies near the communities of The Gate, Morfa, and Gors-goch, and is approximately 13.6 miles from Swansea. Pen-y-groes has a population of around 607 people, predominantly living in semi-detached housing. Pen-y-groes is located in a rural area, with the city of Swansea being the nearest major urban centre.
AdBlue drains across Carmarthenshire, Pen-y-groes included
Pen-y-groes is a village, and the teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Morfa and Gors-goch among them, across the SA postcode area. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting SA14 7.
The vehicle does not need to shift. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Coed Pen-y-groes, a side street close to a street just off the centre: our technicians drain it where it stands. Tricky to explain, like the back of Jerusalem Chapel? Close to a border? Checking is better than guessing, and so phone.
In short, for Pen-y-groes motorists
Always, the cap; then, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere around Carmarthenshire.