Plas Coch: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave the motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Around Plas Coch, catching it before your engine runs normally leaves draining and a full flush on the spot. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads around Plas Coch and Gatewen carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There's a filler on each tank. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for the two, while some move the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Plas Coch?
It's seldom carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
On a driveway off Plas Coch Road before work, or in the car park at The Plas Coch Pub on the way home: that is where the hurried top-up happens. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and once it is empty, limp mode follows.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — but a hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That's the second thing: an unfamiliar vehicle.
Nothing stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Stansty or the middle of Plas Coch: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Plas Coch forecourt or a driveway over in Wrexham, spend a few seconds over these before any is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Wrexham General? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, rather than once the light goes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Wherever across Wrexham the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Pull in on level, motor off, with time in hand — not hurried on the side of Maes Glyndwr.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, but it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Finish when that tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip gently through the built-in spout.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap was never came off.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Do not go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Plas Coch already?
Do not start your motor: that is how the short order of things starts. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch it on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
At a forecourt — Sainsbury's, Shell or another — the staff will normally help roll the car away, when you ask. Your own drive in Plas Coch is the place it should stay.
Already started? Pull over when it is safe, then switch off. Leave the M53 — under 15 miles out of Plas Coch — at the next exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Wrexham, under a mile away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Plas Coch.
What occurs when our engineers arrive in Plas Coch
Our van reaches the car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, near RPM Fitness, or by the local primary school. What liquid went in, the amount, and if it ran: our engineers ask because those answers set the work and price. You get that quote by phone, before anyone sets off.
Next: draining, then a thorough flush of the entire system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of it washes away unaided. Hence it counts more. Once your filter has been cleaned — or replaced, if required — clean diesel is added, and then the vehicle is tested. We don't go until it has been fired up and is running correctly.
If your engine has not run, most 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 at night. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Plas Coch and where it is
Plas Coch is a suburban area located on the outskirts of Wrexham, situated near the river and at an elevation of around 90 metres. Plas Coch is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is close to nearby places such as Stansty, Rhosddu, and Croes Eneurys. Plas Coch has a population of approximately 2971 residents and is within walking distance of Wrexham town centre.
AdBlue drains in Plas Coch and across Wrexham
Plas Coch is a residential suburb, and our teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Rhosddu and Croes Eneurys among them, across the LL postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning LL11 2, and the van gets there fastest.
Your car stays where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Wrexham Tennis Centre, a lay-by on the way to Ashfield Playing Field, a driveway. If you are near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of William Aston Hall, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Plas Coch people: the short version
First, the cap; then, the tip. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it is, anywhere in Wrexham: switch the car off then ring 0333 366 0103.