How It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Collegeland
Pause reading a minute when the diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and ring 0333 366 0103. In Collegeland, finding it before the engine runs normally leaves a drain and a full flush where it stands. The rest of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — useful if you're reading before it has happened.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Not one fluid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels near Collegeland and Loughgall carry, with diesel feeding your engine. AdBlue's own tank holds it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, and there spraying cleans the gas.
Different tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on many motors. On others, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up constantly. Far less frequently, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Collegeland: how it occurs
Seldom is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and running out leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Heugh Road, perhaps outside the pub in the village on the way home after work.
New-to-you cars come next, too. Rentals, new cars and company motors place their fillers differently, and habit 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 after it has started. It's seconds, be it in Charlemont or right in the heart of Collegeland.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Annaghmore or a forecourt around Collegeland, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Many vehicles fit AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show which goes in which filler just there.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
For the day the light comes on — anywhere it is in County Armagh — a routine to follow.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of South Crescent.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have located the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both share a flap, confirm it's closed before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, close the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never opened off.
Find during the second or third stage that AdBlue went in the wrong tank? That's where you stop. Step five stays off limits.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Collegeland?
Brief order, then. Top of it: the engine remains off. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch the vehicle on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you are at a forecourt, whether it is the the nearest petrol station or the another forecourt nearby, ask the staff to help roll the car away from the pump. If you are on your own drive around Collegeland, leave it where it stands.
Where the engine has been run by now, stop safely then turn the vehicle off. Leave the M77 — over 50 miles out of Collegeland — at the next junction. Mileage matters — a short hop across Collegeland makes a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to Armagh — so tell us roughly how far it went.
When our technicians get there around Collegeland, what happens?
Wherever your car came to rest, be it outside the local primary school, near the centre or on your own drive, our van travels to it. Both the work and our quote rest on three answers — what liquid, which amount, and whether it's run — so we ask. That price is given on the call, before any van leaves.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a full flush of the fuel system. Much more than with petrol, it matters with AdBlue: the crystals build up, some metals are attacked, and none of that washes out on its own, no matter how long it is left. Your filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. Next our technicians start the car and make sure it runs correctly before we go.
Unstarted vehicles usually mean a half-hour job after the moment we arrive. The kit is safe on a busy filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Collegeland and where it is
Collegeland is a small locality in County Armagh, situated inland near the city of Armagh. Collegeland has a low elevation of around 15 metres and is located approximately 5 miles from Armagh. Collegeland is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock and is close to nearby places such as Charlemont and Moy.
AdBlue drains across County Armagh, Collegeland included
Collegeland is a small village, and the teams that cover it also work the places near it, Blackwatertown and Moy among them, across the BT postcode area. Quickest of all: give a BT71 6 postcode for our van.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. A drive, a lay-by on the way to the green space at the edge of the village, a side street near a street just off the centre: our engineers drain it where it is. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of the far end of the built-up part.
In short, for Collegeland motorists
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in your diesel tank regardless? Leave it off and phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, throughout County Armagh.