Pwll-y-glaw: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case put this page aside for now, keep the ignition and motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before the motor runs, it's usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Pwll-y-glaw. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the why it happens and the ways to prevent it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Not one fluid but two: that's what many modern diesels near Pwll-y-glaw and Efail Fach carry, with diesel feeding the motor. Its own tank holds it, and from there it goes to your exhaust, and there spraying cleans the gas.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Other vehicles keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have both side by side behind one flap. Diesel goes in at every filling station call-out, week in, week out. Seldom topped up, AdBlue normally goes in from a bottle, poured by a driver who must stop and think which filler to use. That gap is where the error lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Pwll-y-glaw?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Afan Valley Road before work, or in the car park outside Miners Arms on the way home.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, after started, carries on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Pwll-y-glaw or out in Pontrhydyfen.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
Whether a Pwll-y-glaw forecourt or a driveway out in Cwmavon, take a few seconds on these before any goes in.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps normally do not.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many cars show which belongs in which inlet just there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Port Talbot Parkway, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — anywhere it is in Neath Port Talbot — a simple routine to use.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, engine stopped, and never in a rush by Maes-y-Bettws at the roadside.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — once you've found the filler and read the cap.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop once the tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour gently using the built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Skip step five entirely.
Pwll-y-glaw: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Brief list, then. Top of it: your engine stays unstarted. Do not switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of the tank, just where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — Tesco, another forecourt nearby or any other — the staff will usually help roll the vehicle clear, when you ask. If you're on your own driveway around Pwll-y-glaw, leave it where it stands.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the motor has already run. The next exit is where to leave if you're on the M4, under 3 miles from Pwll-y-glaw. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Pwll-y-glaw is smaller a job than a trip of under 10 miles to Swansea, and so say.
What occurs when our engineers get there in Pwll-y-glaw
Anywhere the car has stopped, whether by the local primary school, near Afan Forest Park High Bridge or on your own drive, the van travels to it. The answers settle the work and our price, and so we ask what got in, about how much, and if it has run. You hear that price on the phone, before anyone sets off.
Next: draining, then a full flush of the whole system. More than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: the crystals form, some metals corrode, and nothing clears out on its own, however long it is left. The filter flushed or, where needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; then a check of the vehicle. Your engine is started next and checked to confirm it runs correctly, all before we go.
Most jobs are finished in roughly half an hour once we arrive, as long as the motor has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark outside a house. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It is worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Pwll-y-glaw, briefly
Pwll-y-glaw is a locality situated on the riverside in Neath Port Talbot, with an elevation of 66 metres above sea level. Pwll-y-glaw lies approximately 8.6 miles north of Swansea and is surrounded by nearby places such as Pontrhydyfen and Cwm. Pwll-y-glaw has a population of around 551 people and predominantly consists of semi-detached housing. Pwll-y-glaw is located in a region with a mix of industrial and natural landscapes, near the Welsh coast.
AdBlue drains around Pwll-y-glaw and across Neath Port Talbot
Cwm and Cerrig Llwydion are among the places around Pwll-y-glaw, a small village, that the same vans cover, throughout SA postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts SA12 9, and our van gets there fastest.
There's no need to shift the car. The drain happens right there, be it a drive, a road by Cwmafan Library, or a lay-by on the way to Michaelston Forest. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Cwmavon Community Centre, ring and ask rather than guessing.
Pwll-y-glaw people: the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it is, wherever around Neath Port Talbot: keep it off and phone 0333 366 0103.