Tre-derwen: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Caught before the engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Tre-derwen. The rest of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel car: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to your motor — but many newer diesels seen round Tre-derwen and Deuddwr carry another fluid as well. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Every tank comes with one filler of its own. Plenty of vehicles have a single flap for the two, while some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is filled at the pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Tre-derwen
Carelessness seldom causes it. What does is three things lining up together.
Haste follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done in a rush, before work on a driveway off B4393, or on the way home in the car park outside the pub in the village.
Then your car is new. A hire car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and your hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after started, keeps on. It takes a few seconds, be it out in Waen or bang in the heart of Tre-derwen.
Telling the AdBlue filler from your diesel filler
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a driveway in Llansanffraid-ym-Mechain or a forecourt around Tre-derwen.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap usually isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Many cars give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check when you collect a rental or fleet car — from Welshpool's car park, say — rather than when the warning comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Powys that is.
- Stop on level, motor off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Waen Meadows.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, perhaps, yet it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Stop when the tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; until then, tip slowly through its built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Never carry on to stage five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Tre-derwen already?
Brief list, then. Top of that: your motor stays unstarted. Do not switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the base instead of blending — and that's where your fuel is sucked from.
Ask the attendants to help push your car clear of the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the Esso, the Texaco or anywhere else. Your own drive around Tre-derwen is where it should stay.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Tre-derwen lies under 25 miles from the M54; there, take the first junction. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Tre-derwen is smaller a job than a run of under 25 miles to Wrexham, and so tell us.
Our arrival around Tre-derwen, and what takes place next
By Bryn Offa CofE Primary School, close to St Ffraid's or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. We ask what went in, about how much, and if it has run, since the replies determine the work and the price. You get that price by phone, before anybody sets off.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. The filter cleaned or, where needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; then a check of your car. Before leaving, we start the car and make sure that it's running properly.
If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Tre-derwen and where it is
Tre-derwen is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Powys, Wales, with an elevation of around 85 metres. Tre-derwen lies near the villages of Waen and Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain, and is approximately 20 miles from Wrexham. Tre-derwen has a population of around 505 people, predominantly living in detached houses.
Tre-derwen and Powys: AdBlue drains across the area
Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain and Bryn Tanat are among the places around Tre-derwen, a rural hamlet, that the same vans cover, throughout SY postcodes. A postcode starting SY22 6 gets the van to you fastest.
Your car stays where it is. Draining happens right there, whether a driveway, a road near St Tysilio, or a layby on the way to Badgers Wood. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of St Agatha, ring and ask rather than assuming.
Tre-derwen motorists: the short version
Always, the cap; after that, the pour. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it wherever it is, anywhere across Powys: keep the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103.