Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pont-y-Gof: Why It Occurs
Stop reading a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the engine hasn't turned, it's drained and fully purged where your vehicle is in Pont-y-Gof. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it does not — handy if you are reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel feeds the engine — but many newer diesels seen around Pont-y-Gof and Willowtown carry a second fluid as well. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on a lot of vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think which filler it needs. It's in the gap that the error lives.
Pont-y-Gof: how AdBlue in the diesel tank happens
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Wesleyan Row before work, or in the car park at The Welfare on the way home.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it knew on the old motor — because a hire car, a new car or a company car places the fillers somewhere your last one didn't.
No part halts the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it happens in Ebbw Vale or the middle of Pont-y-Gof, it's the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Check these first, at a forecourt in Pont-y-Gof or a driveway over in Hilltop. Seconds, no more.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver will know. Ask as you pick up a rental or company car — from Ebbw Vale Town's car park, say — rather than when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Blaenau Gwent that is.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, motor off, and never in a rush by Station Approach at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. When both sit under a flap, confirm it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't carry on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Pont-y-Gof?
Short order, then. Top of that: the motor stays unstarted. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
The staff at Tesco, Gulf or another forecourt will normally help to push the vehicle clear if asked. On your own drive around Pont-y-Gof? So your car remains put.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Pont-y-Gof sits under 25 miles from the M4; there, take the first exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Pont-y-Gof is smaller work than a trip of under 25 miles towards Newport, so tell us.
Our arrival around Pont-y-Gof, and what happens next
Outside the local primary school, close to Eugene Cross Park or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Which liquid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask since the answers decide both work and quote. No one heads out before you have heard the quote over the phone.
Then the tank is cleared and the system rinsed thoroughly. 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. Testing is last: before that, clean diesel is added, and the fuel filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. Your engine is started next and tested to make sure it runs smoothly, all before our technicians head off.
If your engine has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. 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 while we're on the way.
About Pont-y-Gof itself
Pont-y-Gof is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Blaenau Gwent, with a mix of terraced housing and a population of around 3757 residents. Pont-y-Gof sits at an elevation of 286 metres, overlooking the surrounding landscape. Pont-y-Gof is located near Ebbw Vale and Newchurch, and is within commuting distance of Newport, which is 16 miles away.
AdBlue drains around Pont-y-Gof, and Blaenau Gwent beyond
Newtown and Newchurch are among the towns around Pont-y-Gof, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over NP postcodes. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting NP23 6.
The car remains where it is. Anywhere it stands — beside Ebbw Vale Shopping Centre, in a layby en route to Eugene Cross Park, at home — that is where it gets emptied. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Time Piece, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Pont-y-Gof motorists
Read the cap before you pour. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Blaenau Gwent, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave the car off and call 0333 366 0103.