How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Senghenydd
Pause here a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. Usually, when your engine hasn't run, it's emptied and fully rinsed where your vehicle sits in Senghenydd. The rest of this page explains why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
No single fluid but two: that's how many modern diesels near Senghenydd and Cilfynydd run, with diesel for your engine. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to fresh them, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Other cars put the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty more place both side by side under one flap. The diesel side is filled at the petrol pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less often. It is in the gap that the mistake happens.
Senghenydd: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your 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 Cross Street before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home.
Unfamiliar vehicles come next, too. Rentals, new motors and company vehicles put their fillers in new places, and the hand goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Third, the spout fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as easily, and once the tip starts, no part stops it. Whether it takes place in Parc Mawr or the middle of Senghenydd, it's the same few seconds.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Whether a Senghenydd forecourt or a drive over in Llanbradach, take a few seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Position misleads; the cap does not. AdBlue caps are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of vehicles, the AdBlue one.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- 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.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park outside Llanbradach? Ask whoever drove it last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
Wherever across Caerphilly the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Switch off once parked — level ground, motor stopped, and never rushed beside High Street at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Finish when that tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, tip gently using its built-in spout.
- Shut the cap, then look again — making sure the diesel filler stayed shut the whole time. Only then, start the vehicle.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Skip stage five entirely.
Senghenydd: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Brief order, then. Top of that: the engine remains off. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the vehicle on. Diluting it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue settles to the base rather than blending — and that's where the fuel is pulled from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it is the Tesco or the Sainsbury's, ask the staff to help push the vehicle away from the petrol pump. If you are on your own driveway in Senghenydd, leave the vehicle where it stands.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your motor has already run. The next exit means the place to leave when you're on the M4, under 10 miles from Senghenydd. Distance counts — a quick hop across Senghenydd is a smaller job than driving under 10 miles towards Cardiff — so say roughly how far it went.
When our technicians turn up in Senghenydd, what happens?
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside Senghenydd Mining Disaster Memorial, or by the local primary school. Our engineers ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because the answers determine the work and our quote. You get that price by phone, before anybody heads out.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a full flush of your system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter cleaned or, where needed, replaced; fresh diesel in; then a test of your vehicle. The motor is fired up next and tested to be sure it runs smoothly, all before we go.
Unrun cars usually need a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a driveway late at night. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your policy; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Senghenydd
Senghenydd is a village in Caerphilly, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of 189 metres, with terraced housing being the predominant type of accommodation. Senghenydd lies approximately 9.9 miles north of Cardiff and is surrounded by nearby places such as Parc Mawr, Abertridwr, and Llanfabon. Senghenydd has a population of around 1813 residents and is located near the Welsh capital city. Senghenydd is also relatively close to the English border, being around 135.5 miles west of London.
AdBlue drains round Senghenydd, and Caerphilly beyond
As a village, Senghenydd has the same vans as nearby areas — Abertridwr, Llanfabon — all the way through CF postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. Fastest of all: give a CF83 4 postcode to the van.
Your car does not need to move. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Eglwysilan Common, a side street close to Welsh National Mining Memorial: we drain the vehicle where it stands. Guessing won't help behind Abertridwr Community Church, on a boundary, or somewhere hard to pin down; phone and check.
Senghenydd motorists: the short version
First, the cap; after that, the pour. Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, anywhere in Caerphilly, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.