Ballylinney: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep your motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Caught before your motor runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is in Ballylinney. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Diesel feeds the engine — yet many newer diesels driven around Ballylinney and Ballyeaston carry another fluid too. AdBlue goes to the exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
There is a filler for every tank. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for both, while some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. Far less often, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs around Ballylinney
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and running out means limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, maybe before work off B738, or at the pub in the village on the way home that evening.
Unfamiliar cars are second, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company motors put their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip once it has started. It takes seconds, be it out in Ballyclare or right in the heart of Ballylinney.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Cogry-Kilbride or a forecourt around Ballylinney, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Look for it.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Check with the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
For the day the warning appears — anywhere it is in County Antrim — a routine to follow.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Chalet Road.
- Daft as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — once you have found your filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two sit under a flap, confirm it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Skip step five altogether.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Ballylinney?
Short order, then. First: your motor remains off. Leave the ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels it by itself runs the pump. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of mixing — and that's where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or any other — the staff will usually help push your car clear, if you ask. If you're on your own driveway around Ballylinney, leave it where it is.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next exit means where to come off if you're on the M77, over 50 miles from Ballylinney. A short hop across Ballylinney is a smaller job than a run towards Belfast, under 15 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
When our technicians get there around Ballylinney, what happens?
Our technicians come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside the local primary school, close to the centre or on your own driveway. What liquid got in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our technicians ask because the answers decide the work and quote. No one sets off until you've heard our quote over the phone.
Your system is then cleaned thoroughly, once that tank is drained. Much more than with petrol, it counts with AdBlue: crystals build up, some metals corrode, and none of it clears out on its own, no matter how long it is left. The fuel filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. We do not go until it has been started and is running correctly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour after our technicians get there, as long as your engine has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth checking your insurance as the van travels to you: misfuelling cover is included with plenty of policies.
About Ballylinney and where it is
Ballylinney is a small locality in County Antrim, situated inland at an elevation of 98 metres, approximately 10 miles northwest of Belfast. Ballylinney is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is located near the communities of Ballyclare, Ballyrobert, and Doagh. Ballylinney has a population of around 505 people and is part of the wider Belfast urban area.
AdBlue drains around Ballylinney, and County Antrim beyond
Over BT postcodes, our vans that cover Ballylinney — a small village — work the surrounding locations too, Doagh and Ballyrobert included. A postcode starting BT39 9 gets the van to you fastest.
The vehicle remains where it is. A drive, a lay-by on the way to the green space at the edge of the village, a side street close to a street just off the centre: we drain it where it sits. Assuming won't help behind the far end of the built-up part, close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe; ring and ask.
For Ballylinney motorists, the short version
Tip nothing till you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in County Antrim, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103.