Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Trefnant
Leave your motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Usually, if the engine hasn't turned, it is drained and fully cleaned where your car sits in Trefnant. Here before the event? Then the rest explains why it happens and what to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels in Green, like those in Trefnant, carry on two liquids; the engine gets only your diesel. AdBlue goes to your 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. Many of motors have a single flap for the two, while some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Topping up your diesel side at the petrol pump happens all the time. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — normally from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
Trefnant: how AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things line up.
Haste comes from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a driveway off Ffordd Pen y Maes, or on the way home in the car park at The Trefnant.
The old car's filler is where the hand goes — yet a rental car, a new motor or a company car keeps the fillers elsewhere. That is the second factor: an unfamiliar vehicle.
No part halts the tip after it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Trefnant or out in Nant-y-Patrick.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these first, on a forecourt in Trefnant or a driveway over in Graig. Seconds, no more.
- Read the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue caps are regularly blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps normally are not.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on plenty of cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask as you collect a hire car or company car — from Rhyl's car park, say — rather than once the light appears.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Denbighshire that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Parc Bach.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once finding the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, yes, but 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.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Shut the cap, then check once more — making sure the diesel filler stayed closed throughout. Only then, start your car.
Discover during the second or third stage that AdBlue went into the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Never go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Trefnant already?
Brief order, then. Top of that: the engine remains unstarted. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the vehicle on. Diluting it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than mixing — and that's where the fuel is sucked from.
On a forecourt — Texaco, R Smith & Son or any other — the staff will usually help roll your car away, if you ask. At home in Trefnant? Then your car stays put.
Where the engine has been run by now, stop somewhere safe then switch the car off. On the Moreton Spur, under 25 miles from Trefnant, that means the next exit. A short hop across Trefnant is a smaller job than a run towards St Asaph, under 3 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
When we arrive in Trefnant, what happens?
Our van reaches the car wherever it stopped — your own driveway, near Capel Trefnant, or outside the local primary school. Which liquid was put in, the amount, and whether it ran: our engineers ask because those replies decide both work and price. No one sets off until you have heard our quote by phone.
Draining that tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears out by itself. Hence it counts more. After the fuel filter is flushed — or replaced, if required — fresh diesel goes in, and then your car gets tested. We don't go until it has been started and is running smoothly.
Unrun cars usually mean a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The equipment is fine on a busy filling station, and quiet enough for a driveway after dark. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Trefnant itself
Trefnant is a small village in Denbighshire, Wales, situated on the banks of a river at an elevation of around 50 metres. Trefnant lies close to the city of St Asaph, with nearby villages including Nant-y-Patrick and Hafod-y-Green. Trefnant has a population of approximately 933 people, with a predominance of detached housing. Trefnant is located about 2.4 miles from St Asaph and around 183 miles from London.
Trefnant and Denbighshire: AdBlue drains across the area
As a village, Trefnant shares its vans nearby areas — Hafod-y-Green, Waen Goleugoed — all the way across LL postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Give a postcode that starts LL16 4, and our van arrives fastest.
There's no need to move the car. Draining takes place on the spot, be it a driveway, a road near Trefnant Village Hall, or a lay-by towards Beer garden. Assuming won't help at the back of Holy Trinity, on a boundary, or anywhere awkward to describe; ring and check.
For Trefnant drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you pour. Still AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, wherever across Denbighshire: keep the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.