How It Happens and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pontwalby
Stop here for a moment if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Pontwalby. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it does not — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
No single fluid but two: that is how plenty of newer diesels near Pontwalby and Pen-common run, with diesel feeding the motor. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean them, from its own tank.
There is a filler on every tank. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more have both together behind one flap. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less frequently. Mistakes happen in the gap between them.
AdBlue in your diesel tank in Pontwalby: how it occurs
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
On a drive off Ynys Y Nos before work, or in the car park at Halfway House heading home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle tells you, and if it is gone, limp mode follows.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is the second thing: a strange vehicle.
A spouted bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, once started, carries on. Whether it occurs in Glyn-neath or the middle of Pontwalby, it's the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Cefn Rhigos or a forecourt in Pontwalby.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — many vehicles mark what goes in which inlet right there.
- The handbook says which it lives when 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 Treherbert? Ask whoever drove the car last before you set off, not when the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Neath Port Talbot that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Merthyr Road, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- Both behind a single flap? Then make sure the cap on your diesel side stays shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Find at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Step five stays out.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Pontwalby?
The short order of things, beginning with not starting your motor. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not 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 dilute it.
On a forecourt — Esso, Texaco or another — the staff will normally help push your car away, when you ask. On your own drive around Pontwalby? So the car remains put.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Come off the M4 — under 15 miles out of Pontwalby — at the next junction. About how far did it go? Crossing Pontwalby is less work than a run of under 25 miles towards Swansea, so say.
When we turn up around Pontwalby, what occurs?
The van comes to the car wherever it stopped — your own drive, near Statue of Max Boyce, or by the local primary school. Which liquid was put in, the quantity, and if it ran: our engineers ask since the answers set the work and quote. No one heads out until you have heard the price by phone.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a full flush of your system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. That is why it matters more. The filter flushed or, where it must be, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. After that our technicians fire it up and check it runs correctly before leaving.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run need about half an hour once our technicians are there. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Pontwalby, for a moment
Pontwalby is a small suburban area situated on the riverside in Neath Port Talbot, with a mix of semi-detached housing and local amenities. Pontwalby sits at an elevation of 59 metres, near the communities of Glyn-neath and Pontneddfechan. Pontwalby is located close to the larger urban centre of Swansea, which is approximately 16.8 miles away. Pontwalby has a population of around 789 residents, living in a relatively quiet environment.
AdBlue drains in Pontwalby and across Neath Port Talbot
Pontneddfechan and Morfa Glas are among the towns around Pontwalby, a residential suburb, that the same teams cover, over SA postcodes. A postcode starting SA11 5 gets our van to you fastest.
Moving the vehicle isn't needed. Wherever it sits — beside Ebenezer Chapel, on a layby en route to Glynneath Welfare Park, at home — that is where it gets drained. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Glynneath Library? Close to a county line? Checking beats guessing, and so ring.
Pontwalby drivers: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere across Neath Port Talbot.