Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Penglais: Why It Happens
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Around Penglais, finding it before your motor turns usually leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. Here in advance? In that case the rest explains how it happens and what to prevent it happening at all.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Many current diesels on the roads about Penglais and Clarach carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Many of cars share a single flap for both, while others move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at every forecourt visit, week in, week out. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think what cap to use. That gap is where the error lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Penglais?
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Llys Taf before work, or in the car park at Coopers' Arms on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is a second factor: a new car.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once begun, keeps on. It's seconds, whether in Waun Fawr or right in the heart of Penglais.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a drive in Pen-y-Bont or a forecourt in Penglais.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue caps are commonly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones normally aren't.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of cars. Check for it.
- The handbook shows which it lives if the filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Aberystwyth? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Wherever across Ceredigion the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Heol Rheidol, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as unscrewing it. It seems daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Never carry on to stage five.
Penglais: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Do not start the engine: that's where the short order of things begins. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with extra diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the base instead of blending — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
The attendants at Texaco, Morrisons or another forecourt will normally help pushing your car clear when you ask. At home in Penglais? Then the car stays put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. On the M4, under 50 miles from Penglais, that means the next junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Penglais makes a smaller job than driving over 50 miles to Swansea — so say roughly how far it went.
When our technicians turn up in Penglais, what takes place?
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside the local primary school, near Physical Sciences Library or on your own drive. Those replies settle the work and the quote, and so we ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. On the phone call itself, you are told the price — ahead of anything else.
Your system is then purged thoroughly, once that tank is drained. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of that washes away by itself. Hence it matters more. Testing is last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or changed as needed. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and check that it is running properly.
Using pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine has not run take roughly half an hour after we are there. No money in advance; you settle up that day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Penglais, briefly
Penglais is a locality situated on the coast of Ceredigion in Wales, with Waun Fawr and Buarth Mawr nearby. Penglais sits at an elevation of 121 metres, overlooking the surrounding area. Penglais is close to Aberystwyth and is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock. Penglais is located approximately 55 miles from Swansea and 179 miles from London.
AdBlue drains in Penglais and across Ceredigion
Being a coastal area, Penglais shares its vans nearby places — Buarth Mawr, Aberystwyth — right through SY postcodes and the wider area beyond. A postcode starting SY23 3 gets our van to you fastest.
Shifting your car isn't necessary. Anywhere it stands — near Hugh Owen Library, in a layby heading to Penglais Woods, at home — that is where it gets drained. Guessing doesn't help behind Arts Centre Theatre, close to a border, or anywhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
For Penglais drivers, the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it stands, wherever across Ceredigion: switch the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.