Comber: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the motor and your ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. In Comber, catching it before your engine turns normally leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. Reading in advance? Then the rest explains why it comes about and how to prevent it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Many modern diesels on the roads around Comber and Dundonald carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust stream and cleans it.
There's a filler on each tank. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. The AdBlue side is topped up far less frequently, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in that gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur in Comber?
Carelessness rarely explains it. Instead is three things lining up at once.
On a drive off Dunskey Street before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village heading home: that is where the hurried top-up takes place. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it's empty, limp mode kicks in.
Then your car is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spout-topped bottle finds no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, after started, keeps on. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Comber or out in Ballygowan.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Balloo or a forecourt around Comber.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or bear the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: plenty of vehicles carry a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- Cannot see it beside the diesel filler? Then check beneath the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook says where.
- Whoever had it before will know. Ask when you pick up a hire car or fleet car — at the nearest station's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching your diesel tank
The day the light goes on, wherever across County Down, follow this routine.
- Switch off once parked — flat ground, engine off, and not rushed by South Crescent at the roadside.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It seems silly. It does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, close the cap and look again that your diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to step five.
Comber: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Short order, then. Top of it: your engine remains off. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the the nearest petrol station, the another forecourt nearby or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you're on your own driveway around Comber.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Comber sits over 50 miles from the M77; on it, take the first junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Belfast, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Comber.
Comber: what takes place when we turn up
Our van comes to your car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, beside the centre, or outside the local primary school. Which liquid went in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask since those answers decide the work and price. During the phone call itself, you are told the quote — ahead of anything else.
Then your tank is cleared and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. A test comes last: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the filter is cleaned or changed if necessary. Your engine is fired up next and tested to confirm it runs properly, all before our technicians go.
If your engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it's worth checking yours while we're on the way.
About Comber
Comber is a small town in County Down, situated on the shores of Strangford Lough, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Comber sits at a low elevation of around 6 metres above sea level, close to the coastal route between Belfast and the Ards Peninsula. Comber is located near several other settlements, including Ballygowan, Newtownards, and Moneyreagh, and is within commuting distance of Belfast. Comber has a population of approximately 6881 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains about Comber, and County Down beyond
As a coastal town, Comber has the same vans as surrounding areas — Newtownards, Moneyreagh — all the way through BT postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Fastest of all: give a BT23 5 postcode for our van.
No need to shift your car. Anywhere it sits — near a street just off the centre, in a lay-by en route to the green space at the edge of the village, at home — that is where it gets drained. Assuming doesn't help at the back of the far end of the built-up part, on a border, or anywhere hard to pin down; ring and ask.
For Comber drivers, the short version
Tip nothing until you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around County Down, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103.