AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Dunloy: Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain and a full flush, done just where your car sits around Dunloy, is normally what it takes if caught before the motor runs. The rest of this page covers why it occurs and how to ensure it does not — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Not one fluid but two: that is how plenty of modern diesels around Dunloy and Loughguile carry, with diesel feeding your motor. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, where spraying treats the gas.
Separate tanks, different fillers. Plenty of vehicles share a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at each filling station visit, again and again. Much less often, the AdBlue side gets topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. It's in the gap that the error lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Dunloy
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a driveway off Wallace Cottages before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home: that is where the rushed top-up takes place. Why the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and once it's empty, limp mode follows.
Then the car is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in as readily, and after the tip starts, no part halts it. Finvoy or the heart of Dunloy: it is the same few seconds either way.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt in Dunloy or a driveway out in Corkey. A few seconds, no more.
- Check the cap rather than going by position: AdBlue ones are often blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel ones usually aren't.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently says which fuel goes where, on many vehicles. Look for it.
- The handbook says which it lives if your filler isn't next to your diesel cap: your boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Check when you collect a rental or fleet car — at the nearest station's car park, perhaps — rather than when the light appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever in County Antrim, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of B842, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems daft. 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's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, close the cap and look again that your diesel cap never opened off.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Stage five is off limits.
Already put AdBlue in the diesel tank around Dunloy?
Don't start your motor: that is how the short order of things starts. Leave your ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels it by itself starts your fuel pump. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is sucked from.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the the nearest petrol station or the another forecourt nearby, ask the staff to help push the car clear of the pump. If you're on your own driveway around Dunloy, leave the car where it sits.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. On the M77, over 50 miles from Dunloy, that means the next exit. A short hop across Dunloy is a smaller job than a run towards Belfast, under 50 miles away, and so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival in Dunloy, and what occurs next
By the local primary school, close to the centre or on your own drive: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and our price rest on three answers — which liquid, which amount, and if it has run — so our engineers ask. You get that price on the phone, before anyone sets off.
Next: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. Not like petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and none of that clears out unaided. That is why it counts more. Filter cleaned or, where needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your car. We don't leave until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Unrun vehicles usually need a half-hour visit from the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. Paying happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the documents an insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. It is worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Dunloy and where it is
Dunloy is a small locality in County Antrim, situated inland at an elevation of 117 metres. Dunloy lies approximately 34 miles northwest of Belfast, near the villages of Finvoy, Rasharkin, and Cloughmills. Dunloy has a population of around 873 people, with a predominance of semi-detached housing. Dunloy is located in a rural area, about 355 miles northwest of London.
Dunloy and County Antrim: AdBlue drains across the area
Being a small village, Dunloy has the same vans as nearby places — Rasharkin, Cloughmills — right across BT postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Our van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting BT44 9.
Your car remains put. Anywhere it stands — beside a street just off the centre, in a layby heading to the green space at the edge of the village, on a drive — that is where it gets emptied. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of the far end of the built-up part.
For Dunloy people, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, anywhere around County Antrim, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — and so leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103.