Pontyberem: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your engine and the ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103. In Pontyberem, catching it before the motor turns usually means draining and a thorough flush where it stands. Nothing happened yet? Further down, the page covers the reasons it takes place and the how to prevent it altogether.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels around Cwm-mawr, as well as Pontyberem, run on two fluids; your engine takes only the diesel. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled all the time. Seldom filled, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think what cap to use. The error lives in that gap.
Pontyberem: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
On a drive off Coalbrook Road before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low the vehicle warns you, and if it is empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to 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. It's a few seconds, be it out in Llygadywawr or right in the heart of Pontyberem.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Pont Henri or a forecourt in Pontyberem, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Position misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- Cannot see it beside your diesel inlet? In that case check beneath the bonnet or in the boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- The previous driver will know. Check when you collect a hire car or company car — at Pontarddulais's car park, say — not when the light appears.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light goes on, anywhere in Carmarthenshire, follow this routine.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Hewlett Road.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you've found your filler and read it.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, and check once more — making sure the diesel cap remained shut throughout. After that, start the car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Leave out stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Pontyberem?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — so leave it off. Filling up with diesel won't dilute it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
Ask the attendants to help push your car away from the pump if you're on a forecourt — the Independent, the Asda or anywhere else. At home around Pontyberem? So the vehicle remains where it is.
When your motor has run already, pull over safely then switch the car off. Come off the M4 — under 10 miles out of Pontyberem — at the first junction. A short hop across Pontyberem is a smaller job than a run towards Swansea, under 15 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our engineers turn up around Pontyberem, what occurs?
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside the local primary school, near St. John's Church or on your own drive. Both the work and our quote rest on three answers — which fluid, which amount, and if it's run — so our technicians ask. That quote comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Next: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of that washes out unaided. Hence it matters more. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. The motor is started next and checked to be sure it runs correctly, all before our engineers go.
Unrun cars mostly need a half-hour job from arrival. The kit is safe on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a driveway after dark. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Pontyberem itself
Pontyberem is a small village in Carmarthenshire, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 49 metres. Pontyberem lies near the communities of Llygadywawr, Bancffosfelen, and Mynydd Cerrig, and is approximately 14.7 miles from Swansea. Pontyberem has a population of around 549 people, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Pontyberem is located in a rural area, with the city of Swansea being the nearest urban centre.
Pontyberem and Carmarthenshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Pontyberem is a village, and our teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Bancffosfelen and Mynydd Cerrig among them, across the SA postcode area. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting SA15 5.
The vehicle remains put. The drain happens on the spot, be it a driveway, a road near Memorial Hall, or a layby on the way to Pontyberem Park. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Kingdom Hall.
In short, for Pontyberem people
Before you tip, read the cap. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave it switched off then call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, across Carmarthenshire.