AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pontarddulais: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then set this page aside a moment, leave the ignition and motor off, and call 0333 366 0103. Around Pontarddulais, finding it before your engine turns normally leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page covers the why it happens and the ways to avoid it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Plenty of modern diesels on the roads around Pontarddulais and Graig-Fawr carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on a lot of cars. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in your boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen in Pontarddulais?
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
Haste follows from the warning. The vehicle tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a drive off St Teilo Street, or heading home in the car park outside Farmers Arms.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — yet a rental car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's the second factor: an unfamiliar car.
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. Hendy or the middle of Pontarddulais: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, at a forecourt in Pontarddulais or a driveway out in Pentrebach. A few seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many motors, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on plenty of motors. Check for it.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Wherever around Swansea the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, engine stopped, and never rushed by Stryd St Teilo on the verge.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, yet it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two share a flap, make sure it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Step five stays out.
Pontarddulais: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Don't start the engine: that is how the short order of things starts. Don't switch the ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of blending — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
Ask the attendants to help push the car away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Tesco, the Shell or somewhere else. If you're on your own drive in Pontarddulais, leave the car where it is.
Where your motor has been run by now, stop somewhere safe and switch the car off. Come off the M4 — under a mile out of Pontarddulais — at the next exit. About how far did it go? Hopping across Pontarddulais is smaller work than a run of under 10 miles to Swansea, so say.
What takes place when our engineers turn up in Pontarddulais
Wherever your car has stopped, be it by the local primary school, beside Noddfa Evangelical Church or at home, the van comes to it. What fluid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: we ask because those answers decide both work and price. On the phone call itself, you are told our quote — ahead of anything else.
The system is then rinsed thoroughly, once the tank is emptied. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before we leave, we start the car and check that it is running smoothly.
If the motor hasn't run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Pontarddulais itself
Pontarddulais is a coastal town in Swansea, situated near the mouth of the River Loughor, with Hendy, Fforest, and Waungron nearby. Pontarddulais has a population of around 8153 people and is characterized by semi-detached housing. Pontarddulais sits at a low elevation of 15 metres above sea level, approximately 7.7 miles northwest of Swansea. Pontarddulais is located within commuting distance of Swansea, but is also far enough from London, at 168.4 miles away, to maintain its own identity.
AdBlue drains in Pontarddulais and across Swansea
Pontarddulais is a coastal town, and the teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Fforest and Waungron among them, across the SA postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting SA4 8.
Moving the vehicle is not necessary. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Cambrian Park, a side street close to Wesley Methodist Church: our engineers drain the car where it stands. Assuming doesn't help behind Carmel, on a boundary, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
The short version for Pontarddulais drivers
First, the cap; then, the pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it waits, anywhere around Swansea.