Why It Happens and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Altmore
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the engine hasn't turned, it is drained and fully rinsed where your car is in Altmore. Nothing happened yet? Below, the rest of the page explains the why it takes place and the how to avoid it altogether.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
No single liquid but two: that's what plenty of newer diesels around Altmore and Shanmaghery carry, with diesel feeding the motor. Your exhaust, not the engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to fresh it, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of motors the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel gets filled at each filling station call-out, again and again. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually comes from a bottle, tipped by a driver who has to stop and think which filler it needs. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank happen around Altmore?
Carelessness seldom explains it. What does is three things coming up together.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from your car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — so a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off B842, perhaps at the pub in the village on the way home after work.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the pour, once begun, carries on. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Altmore or out in Cappagh.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a drive in Carrickmore or a forecourt around Altmore.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- On many cars, the size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Open the flap and look for a label — many vehicles show what goes in each inlet just there.
- The handbook shows where it lives when the filler isn't next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you pick up a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at the nearest station.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in County Tyrone that is.
- Turn off once parked — level ground, engine off, and not in a rush by Dunaverty Court 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 two behind one flap? So make sure the cap on your diesel side is still shut ahead of lifting the bottle.
- Stop once your tank fills or the bottle runs dry; before that, pour slowly using the own spout.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Don't carry on to step five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Altmore?
Don't start the motor: that is where the short order of things begins. The fuel pump starts on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — so keep it off. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
The staff at the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or any forecourt will normally help pushing the car away when asked. At home in Altmore? Then the car remains where it is.
If your engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M77, over 50 miles from Altmore, that means the next junction. Mileage matters — a quick hop across Altmore is a smaller job than driving under 25 miles to Armagh — so tell us roughly how far it went.
What takes place when we get there in Altmore
Outside the local primary school, close to the centre or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. We ask what went in, roughly how much, and if it's run, because those replies determine the work and our quote. On the phone call itself, you hear the price — before anything else.
Emptying the tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. After the filter is flushed — or renewed, if needed — clean diesel goes in, and then the car is tested. Before we leave, our technicians fire it up and check that it is running smoothly.
Most jobs are finished in about half an hour once our technicians arrive, as long as the engine hasn't run — and the pumps our engineers use are fine on a live forecourt yet quiet after dark beside a house. No money upfront; you settle up on the day. At the end, the VAT invoice and a report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. While we travel, have a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Altmore, briefly
Altmore is a rural locality in County Tyrone, situated inland at an elevation of 225 metres. Altmore lies near the villages of Cappagh, Pomeroy, and Killay, and is approximately 19 miles from the city of Armagh. Altmore is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its dispersed and rural nature. Altmore is also relatively distant from major urban centres, with London over 350 miles away.
AdBlue drains across County Tyrone, Altmore included
Altmore is a small village, and the vans that cover it also work the places near it, Pomeroy and Killay among them, across the BT postcode area. Quickest of all: quote a BT79 9 postcode to the van.
Shifting the vehicle is not necessary. Anywhere it sits — near a street just off the centre, on a lay-by heading to the green space at the edge of the village, on a drive — that's where it gets drained. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of the far end of the built-up part.
In short, for Altmore drivers
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere across County Tyrone.