Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Trinant
Keep your engine and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, when your motor hasn't run, it is emptied and thoroughly cleaned where your car is around Trinant. The remainder of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it does not — handy if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel car, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels around Llanhilleth, as well as Trinant, carry on two liquids; your engine gets only your diesel. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
There is a filler on every tank. Plenty of motors have a single flap for both, while others move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in on every filling station call-out, again and again. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. The slip lives in that gap.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank happens in Trinant
Carelessness seldom causes it. Instead is three things lining up together.
Hurry comes from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends it into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Old School Lane, or heading home in the car park at Trinant Sports & Social Club.
Then, the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old vehicle — because a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't.
No part halts the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. It's a few seconds, whether out in Pen-twyn or bang in the centre of Trinant.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you pour anything, whether on a driveway in Millbrook or a forecourt in Trinant, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not where it sits.
- On plenty of vehicles, size tells: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Lift the flap and look for a label — many motors mark which belongs in which filler just there.
- Cannot find it beside your diesel filler? Then look beneath the bonnet or in the boot — the handbook says which.
- Picking up a hire or company car, say at the car park at Llanhilleth? Ask whoever drove the vehicle last before leaving, not once the light goes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
On the day the light comes on — anywhere it is across Caerphilly — a simple routine to follow.
- Turn off after you park — flat ground, motor off, and never in a rush by Llanerch Lane at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and speak the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish once the tank is topped up or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour gently using the own spout.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Don't carry on to stage five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Trinant?
Do not start your motor: that is how the short order of things starts. The fuel pump runs on many diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — so leave it off. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so do not top up with diesel to thin it.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the Texaco or the another forecourt nearby, ask the attendants to help push your car clear of the pump. At home around Trinant? So your car stays where it is.
Already started? Pull over once it's safe, then switch off. The next exit means where to come off if you are on the M4, under 10 miles from Trinant. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Trinant is smaller work than a trip of under 10 miles towards Newport, so say.
Our arrival in Trinant, and what takes place next
Outside the local primary school, close to Trinant Methodist Church or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and our quote depend on three answers — what fluid, which amount, and whether it has run — so our engineers ask. During the call itself, you hear our price — ahead of dispatch.
Then that tank is drained and the system cleaned thoroughly. More than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and nothing washes away unaided, however long it sits. Once your filter is cleaned — or replaced, where required — fresh diesel is added, and then your car is tested. The engine is fired up next and tested to make sure it runs properly, all before our engineers leave.
Unstarted cars mostly mean a half-hour job after arrival. The kit is safe on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Trinant
Trinant is a small village in Caerphilly, situated inland at an elevation of 227 metres, with semi-detached housing being the predominant type. Trinant lies near the communities of Pen-twyn, Cwm-nant-gwynt, and Glandwr, and is approximately 9.8 miles from Newport. Trinant has a population of around 955 residents, and its location allows for easy access to nearby cities. Trinant is also relatively close to the English border, being around 130 miles from London.
Trinant and Caerphilly: AdBlue drains across the area
Cwm-nant-gwynt and Glandwr are among the towns near Trinant, a rural village, that the same teams cover, throughout NP postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts NP11 3, and our van arrives quickest.
Your car doesn't need to shift. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near Horeb Chapel, a lay-by on the way to Pen-y-fan Country Park, a driveway. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Trinant Community Centre.
For Trinant drivers, the short version
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere across Caerphilly, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.