AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Sandy: Why It Occurs and How to Stop It
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page down for now, leave the ignition and engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your engine hasn't run, it is emptied and fully flushed where your vehicle sits around Sandy. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
No single fluid but two: that is what many newer diesels near Sandy and Wern carry, with diesel for the engine. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the arrangement on a lot of cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump happens constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in that gap that the error lives.
Sandy: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from your car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Sandy Roundabout, perhaps at The Sandpiper on the way home after work.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That is the second factor: a new vehicle.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once started, carries on. Whether it takes place in Llanelli or the middle of Sandy, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Sandy forecourt or a driveway over in Seaside, take a couple of seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Check the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue ones are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- Can't see it next to the diesel inlet? In that case look beneath the bonnet or inside the boot — the owner's manual will say which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside Llanelli.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Wherever around Carmarthenshire the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of A484.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — once you've located your filler and read it.
- If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Leave out stage five altogether.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Sandy?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start the engine. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — and so keep it off. Filling up with diesel won't thin it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of the tank, just where fuel is taken from.
At a forecourt — Asda, Texaco or any other — the attendants will normally help roll your car clear, if you ask. If you're on your own driveway in Sandy, leave the car where it sits.
Already started? Pull over when it's sensible, then turn off. Sandy lies under 10 miles from the M4; there, take the first exit. Distance counts — a quick hop across Sandy makes a smaller job than heading under 15 miles to Swansea — so tell us about how far it went.
Our arrival in Sandy, and what occurs next
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near Frankie's Kitchen, or by the local primary school. We ask what got in, about how much, and if it's run, since the replies determine this work and our quote. You get that price on the phone, before anybody heads out.
Draining the tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the fuel system. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. A test is last: before that, fresh diesel is added, and your filter is cleaned or replaced if necessary. Before we leave, our engineers start the car and confirm that it's running properly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after our engineers get there, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps we use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark outside a house. The insurer will ask for an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. It is worth looking at your policy as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Sandy
Sandy is a coastal suburban area in Carmarthenshire, situated near the cities of Swansea and Llanelli. Sandy sits at a low elevation of around 7 metres, close to the shores of the Bristol Channel. Sandy is characterized by its predominantly semi-detached housing stock, reflecting the residential development of the area. Sandy is part of the wider Swansea Bay urban landscape, with nearby communities including Furnace and Mount Pleasant.
AdBlue drains round Sandy, and Carmarthenshire beyond
Sandy is a residential suburb, and the teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Furnace and Mount Pleasant among them, across the SA postcode area. Fastest of all: give a SA15 4 postcode to the van.
Moving the car is not needed. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to People's Park, a side street near Thank you NHS and Keyworkers: our technicians drain the vehicle where it stands. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Selwyn Samuel Centre.
For Sandy people, the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you've read the cap. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever across Carmarthenshire: keep the car off then call 0333 366 0103.