Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Penarth: Why It Occurs
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? Then put this page aside a moment, leave your ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the motor hasn't turned, it's emptied and thoroughly rinsed where the vehicle is around Penarth. Here before the event? In that case the rest covers how it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Not one liquid but two: that is how many modern diesels near Penarth and Penarth Flats carry, with diesel feeding your engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, tipped by someone who has to stop and think what filler to use. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank take place in Penarth?
It is seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Haste comes from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Hickman Road, or on the way home in the car park at Railway Hotel.
Then, your hand goes for the cap it knew on the old vehicle — since a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere your last one did not.
Lastly, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it goes in as easily, and once the tip begins, no part stops it. Morristown or the heart of Penarth: it is the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Be it a Penarth forecourt or a drive over in Penarth Moors, take a couple of seconds over these before any is poured in.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally aren't.
- On plenty of motors, the size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Open the flap and look for a label — many vehicles show what belongs in which filler right there.
- The handbook says where it is when your filler is not next to the diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere across The Vale of Glamorgan the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — not hurried on the side of Stanwell Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, close the cap and look again that your diesel cap never came off.
Find during the second or third step that the bottle went into the wrong tank? That is where you stop. Leave out step five entirely.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Penarth?
Don't start the motor: that is where the short order of things begins. Keep the ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself starts the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the staff to help push your car away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Tesco, the Morrisons or somewhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Penarth.
Where your engine has been run by now, pull over safely and turn the vehicle off. The next junction is where to leave when you're on the M4, under 10 miles from Penarth. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Cardiff, under 5 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Penarth.
Our arrival around Penarth, and what happens next
By the local primary school, near Turner House Gallery or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, we come to it. We ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run, because the answers settle this work and our price. Nobody heads out before you have had our quote by phone.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. 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. The filter flushed or, where it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of your car. Before leaving, we fire it up and make sure that it's running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after we arrive, as long as the engine hasn't run — and the pumps we use are safe on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to check yours.
About Penarth and where it is
Penarth is a coastal town in the Vale of Glamorgan, situated on the southern coast of Wales, approximately 3 miles southwest of Cardiff. Penarth has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly characterized by terraced homes. Penarth sits at an elevation of around 45 metres, looking out over the Bristol Channel. Penarth is a significant urban centre in its own right, with a population of around 19,300 people.
AdBlue drains around Penarth and across The Vale of Glamorgan
Being a coastal town, Penarth shares its vans surrounding places — Lower Penarth, Cogan — all the way across CF postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting CF64 2.
Your car remains put. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near Penarth Library, a lay-by on the way to The Dingle, a drive. If you're near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of Penarth Lawn Tennis Club, ring and ask instead of assuming.
For Penarth people, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, wherever around The Vale of Glamorgan: keep it off and ring 0333 366 0103.