How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pwllypant
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. In Pwllypant, finding it before your motor runs usually leaves draining and a full flush on the spot. The remainder of this page explains why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel car
No single fluid but two: that's what many newer diesels around Pwllypant and Llanbradach carry, with diesel feeding the engine. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There is a filler for every tank. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place both together behind one flap. Topping up your diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less commonly, normally from a bottle, and usually by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
Pwllypant: how AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
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 driveway off Pontygwindy Road before work, or in the car park at Pontygwindy Alehouse on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — yet a hire car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's the second factor: an unfamiliar car.
No part stops the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, whether out in Churchill Park or bang in the heart of Pwllypant.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Pwllypant forecourt or a driveway out in Trecenydd, take a few seconds over these before anything goes in.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — many cars mark which goes in which inlet just there.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in your 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 at Energlyn & Churchill Park.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — wherever you are around Caerphilly — a simple routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of A468, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, but it does the trick.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop when your tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, pour gently using its built-in spout.
- Close the cap, and check once more — making sure your diesel filler stayed closed throughout. After that, start the vehicle.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Skip step five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Pwllypant?
Do not start your motor: that's where the short order of things starts. Leave the ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels it by itself starts the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the base of your tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Asda, Texaco or another — the attendants will usually help push the car away, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Pwllypant.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. On the M4, under 5 miles from Pwllypant, that means the next exit. Distance matters — a short hop across Pwllypant is a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to Cardiff — so tell us about how far it went.
When our technicians turn up in Pwllypant, what happens?
Our van reaches the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Pwllypant Village Hall, or by the local primary school. Our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it's run, because those replies decide this work and the quote. You get that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
After that: a drain, then a thorough flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Once the filter is cleaned — or renewed, where required — clean diesel is added, and finally the car is tested. After that our technicians start the car and check it runs properly before leaving.
Unstarted cars mostly mean a half-hour visit after arrival. The equipment is safe on a busy forecourt, and hushed enough for a driveway after dark. Your insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Pwllypant itself
Pwllypant is a suburban area in Caerphilly, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 82 metres. Pwllypant lies approximately 8 miles north of Cardiff and is characterized by its semi-detached housing stock. Pwllypant is close to nearby places such as Churchill Park, Energlyn, and Penyrheol, and is part of the wider commuter belt around Cardiff.
Pwllypant and Caerphilly: AdBlue drains across the area
As a residential suburb, Pwllypant shares its vans surrounding areas — Energlyn, Penyrheol — all the way across CF postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting CF83 3 gets the van to you fastest.
Shifting the car isn't necessary. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Energlyn Sidings, a side street close to Caerphilly Children's Centre: we drain it where it is. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of St Andrew's Church.
The short version for Pwllypant drivers
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around Caerphilly, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless — and so leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103.