How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Penygraig
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out just where your vehicle sits around Penygraig, is normally all it needs when caught before your motor runs. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it does not — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of newer diesels in Trealaw, like those in Penygraig, carry on two fluids; your engine gets just your diesel. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, and there a spray cleans the fumes.
There's a filler on each tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on many cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel gets filled at every forecourt visit, week in, week out. Rarely topped up, AdBlue normally comes out of a bottle, poured by someone who has to stop and think which cap to use. The error lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Penygraig: how it occurs
Carelessness rarely causes it. What does is three things coming up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Dinas Road before work, or in the car park outside White Rock Hotel on the way home.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the tip after it has started. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Penygraig or out in Tonypandy.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you tip anything, on a drive in Penrhiwfer or a forecourt in Penygraig.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally is not. Read it instead of going by where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside your fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver will know. Ask when you collect a rental or company car — at Tonypandy's car park, perhaps — not once the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Rhondda Cynon Taf that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Field Street, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, yes, but it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, shut the cap and check again that your diesel cap never came off.
Discover during the second or third stage that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Step five is out.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Penygraig already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your engine. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch it on. Thinning it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Shell, Asda or another — the staff will normally help roll your car away, when you ask. At home around Penygraig? So the car remains put.
Already started? Stop once it is sensible, then switch off. Leave the M4 — under 10 miles out of Penygraig — at the next junction. A short hop across Penygraig is a smaller job than a run towards Cardiff, under 15 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we get there around Penygraig, what takes place?
By the local primary school, close to Penygraig War Memorial or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Both the work and our quote depend on three replies — what fluid, what quantity, and if it has run — so our engineers ask. You get that price by phone, before anybody sets off.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Filter flushed or, where needed, swapped; clean diesel in; then a test of the vehicle. Before we go, we fire it up and check that it's running properly.
If your engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Penygraig
Penygraig is a suburban area in Rhondda Cynon Taf, situated on the banks of the River Rhondda at an elevation of 151 metres. Penygraig is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing stock, reflecting the area's historical development as a residential community. Penygraig is located near the towns of Tonypandy, Williamstown, and Dinas, and is approximately 14.8 miles from Cardiff. Penygraig has a population of around 5413 people, making it a sizable community in the region.
AdBlue drains across Rhondda Cynon Taf, Penygraig included
Williamstown and Dinas are among the towns near Penygraig, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, throughout CF postcodes. A postcode starting CF40 1 gets our van to you fastest.
Moving the vehicle is not necessary. Anywhere it stands — beside Pisgah Chapel, on a layby heading to Belle Vue Park, at home — that is where it is cleared. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Graig Park? By a county line? Checking is better than assuming, so ring.
In short, for Penygraig people
Read the cap before you tip. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep it switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, throughout Rhondda Cynon Taf.