Pen-yr-heol: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave the engine and ignition off and call 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Pen-yr-heol. The remainder of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Not one fluid but two: that's how plenty of modern diesels around Pen-yr-heol and Byeastwood run, with diesel feeding your engine. Its own tank keeps it, and from there it goes to the exhaust, where a spray treats the fumes.
Different tanks, different fillers. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump goes on all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between them.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Pen-yr-heol?
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a warning from the car, and letting it run out means limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, maybe before work off Heol Spencer, or outside The Six Bells on the way home that evening.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Pant-y-pyllau or the middle of Pen-yr-heol: it takes the same few seconds in both.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Whether a Pen-yr-heol forecourt or a drive over in Bragdy, spend a few seconds over these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Wildmill, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere across Bridgend 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 Parc y Fferm.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it's shut before the bottle comes up.
- Finish once the tank fills or the bottle is empty; until then, tip slowly through the built-in spout.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and look again that your diesel cap was never came off.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Never go on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Pen-yr-heol already?
Brief order, then. Top of that: the engine stays off. Do not switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, right where fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Sainsbury's, Welcome Break or another — the staff will usually help roll the car away, when you ask. On your own drive around Pen-yr-heol? So the vehicle stays where it is.
Where your engine has been run already, pull over safely and turn the car off. Pen-yr-heol lies under a mile from the M4; on it, take the next exit. About how far did it go? Crossing Pen-yr-heol is less a job than a run of under 25 miles towards Cardiff, so tell us.
Pen-yr-heol: what happens when our engineers get there
The van reaches your car anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, beside Gilead Village Hall, or by the local primary school. We ask what went in, about how much, and whether it has run, because those answers determine this work and the quote. On the call itself, you hear our quote — before dispatch.
Then the tank is drained and the fuel system cleaned thoroughly. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own. Once the fuel filter has been flushed — or replaced, if required — clean diesel goes in, and finally the car is tested. Your engine is started next and tested to make sure it runs properly, all before our engineers leave.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour after we arrive, as long as the engine has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Pen-yr-heol
Pen-yr-heol is a small hamlet in Bridgend, situated inland at an elevation of 107 metres, with detached housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Pen-yr-heol lies near several other small communities, including Pant-y-pyllau, Coity, and Derwen, and is approximately 16.7 miles from Cardiff. Pen-yr-heol has a population of around 1029 residents, who live in a rural setting. Pen-yr-heol is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of 147.4 miles.
AdBlue drains around Pen-yr-heol and across Bridgend
Pen-yr-heol is a rural hamlet, and the vans that cover it also work the places around it, Coity and Derwen among them, across the CF postcode area. Give a postcode that starts CF35 6, and the van arrives quickest.
Shifting your car isn't needed. We drain it where it is — a side street near Gilead Chapel, a lay-by on the way to Coed Parc-garw, a drive. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Church of St Mary, ring and ask rather than assuming.
For Pen-yr-heol drivers, the short version
Pour nothing until you've read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep it off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Bridgend.