Prendergast: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave your motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, when your engine has not run, it is drained and fully cleaned where your vehicle is around Prendergast. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to make sure it does not — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
No single fluid but two: that's how many modern diesels around Prendergast and Slade run, with diesel feeding the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas to clean it.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of vehicles the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. The mistake lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Prendergast?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from the vehicle, and letting it run out means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Back Lane, perhaps at Farmers Arms on the way home that evening.
New-to-you motors are next, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company cars place their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap it 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, and so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Haverfordwest or the heart of Prendergast: it takes the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in Prendergast or a driveway over in Albert Town. A few seconds, no more.
- Check the cap rather than going by where it sits: AdBlue ones are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually aren't.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- Open the flap and check for a label — plenty of motors show which belongs in which inlet right there.
- Can't see it next to your diesel filler? In that case check below the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- The previous driver will know. Ask as you collect a rental or company car — at Haverfordwest's car park, say — not once the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
The day the light comes on, anywhere around Pembrokeshire, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of Jockey Fields, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and check again that the diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Don't carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Prendergast?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start your motor. Leave the ignition off as well, since on many diesels it alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so do not top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it's the Morrisons or the Tesco, ask the staff to help roll the vehicle clear of the pump. Your own driveway in Prendergast is where it should stay.
Already run? Pull over once it's sensible, then turn off. Come off the M4 — under 50 miles out of Prendergast — at the first junction. Distance matters — a short hop across Prendergast is a smaller job than driving under 15 miles to St Davids — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Prendergast: what happens when our engineers turn up
We come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside the local primary school, close to Pembrokeshire Archives or on your own driveway. The answers settle this work and the quote, and so our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. During the call itself, you are told the price — ahead of anything else.
Your system is then purged thoroughly, after 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 doesn't wash out on its own. The filter flushed or, if needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of the vehicle. After that our technicians fire it up and check it runs smoothly before we leave.
Unrun vehicles usually need a half-hour visit after arrival. The kit is fine on a live forecourt, and quiet enough for a driveway late at night. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and both are yours at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Prendergast and where it is
Prendergast is a suburban area in Pembrokeshire, situated near the coast of Wales, with an elevation of around 31 metres. Prendergast lies close to the nearby towns of Haverfordwest and St Davids, and is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock. Prendergast is part of a larger network of communities in the region, including The Marsh and Glanafon.
Prendergast and Pembrokeshire: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a residential suburb, Prendergast has the same vans as surrounding places — The Marsh, Glanafon — all the way across SA postcodes and the wider area beyond. Give a postcode beginning SA61 2, and the van arrives fastest.
Your car remains put. We drain it where it is — a side street near St. Davids Church, a lay-by on the way to Picton Fields, a drive. Tricky to pin down, like the back of Haverfordwest Mart? By a border? Checking is better than guessing, and so phone.
The short version for Prendergast drivers
First, the cap; then, the pour. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in Pembrokeshire, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.