Avoiding AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Trealaw: Why It Happens
Stop here a minute if the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, and ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out right where the car stands around Trealaw, is normally what it takes if found before the motor runs. Not happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the why it takes place and the how to prevent it altogether.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Not one fluid but two: that's what plenty of modern diesels near Trealaw and Blaen Clydach run, with diesel for your motor. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, and there a spray cleans the gas.
Every tank comes with a filler of its own. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in the boot or under the bonnet; a lot more place both together under one flap. Filling the diesel side at the pump goes on all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, tipped by someone who must stop and think what filler to use. It's in that gap that the slip lives.
Trealaw: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a driveway off Heather Close, or heading home in the car park at White Hart Hotel.
New-to-you motors come second, as well. Rentals, new vehicles and company cars put their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
Nothing stops the pour once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Tonypandy or the middle of Trealaw: it is the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these before pouring, at a forecourt in Trealaw or a drive over in Dinas. Seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of motors carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it beside your diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the vehicle last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside Tonypandy, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — anywhere it is across Rhondda Cynon Taf — a routine to use.
- Stop somewhere level, engine off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Miskin Road.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the vehicle on.
- Finish once your tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; until then, tip slowly using its built-in spout.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — confirm your diesel cap remained shut throughout. Only then, start the car.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop right there. Leave out stage five entirely.
Trealaw: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Do not start your motor: that's how the short order of things begins. Leave the ignition off too, because on many diesels switching it on by itself starts the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of your tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
The attendants at Asda, Shell or any forecourt will usually help to push your car clear when you ask. Your own driveway in Trealaw is the place it stays.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Come off the M4 — under 10 miles out of Trealaw — at the first junction. Distance matters — a quick hop across Trealaw makes a smaller job than driving under 25 miles to Cardiff — so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Trealaw, and what occurs next
Anywhere your car has stopped, whether by the local primary school, near St. Andrew's Church or on your own drive, our van comes to it. The replies determine this work and our quote, so we ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run. On the phone call itself, you hear our price — before anything else.
Draining your tank comes next, then a full flush of the system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more here than with petrol. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. Before leaving, our engineers fire it up and confirm that it is running smoothly.
If the motor hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. The insurer usually wants the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both at the end. Payment comes on the day, with no money upfront. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Trealaw itself
Trealaw is a suburban area in Rhondda Cynon Taf, situated on the banks of the River Rhondda. Trealaw has a mix of terraced housing and is located near other similar communities such as Tonypandy and Penygraig. Trealaw sits at an elevation of 131 metres, with Cardiff approximately 15 miles to the south. Trealaw is part of a wider urban area that has developed along the riverside in this part of Wales.
AdBlue drains in Trealaw and across Rhondda Cynon Taf
Being a residential suburb, Trealaw has the same vans as nearby places — Llwynypia, Penygraig — right through CF postcodes and the wider area beyond. Give a postcode beginning CF40 2, and the van gets there fastest.
Your car remains where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street close to Tonypandy Library, a lay-by on the way to King George V Track and Field, a driveway. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Living Way Church.
Trealaw motorists: the short version
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, wherever in Rhondda Cynon Taf: keep the car off then call 0333 366 0103.