Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Forkill
Keep your motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — the rest can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. In Forkill, finding it before your motor runs usually means a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel motor need its own filler?
Plenty of newer diesels on the roads about Forkill and Silverbridge carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the engine. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust gas to clean it.
Separate tanks, different fillers. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at every forecourt call-out, week in, week out. Seldom topped up, AdBlue usually goes in from a bottle, tipped by a driver who must stop and think which filler it needs. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Forkill: how it happens
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off B7041 before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home.
Then the vehicle is unfamiliar. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one didn't, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as easily, and once the pour starts, no part halts it. Dromintee or the middle of Forkill: it takes the same few seconds either way.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
Be it a Forkill forecourt or a drive over in Meigh, spend a couple of seconds over these before any goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- The size. On many vehicles the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside your fuel flap for a label. Plenty of motors say there which fuel goes where.
- Can't find it beside your diesel inlet? In that case check beneath the bonnet or inside your boot — the handbook says where.
- Whoever had it before will know. Check as you collect a rental or fleet car — from the nearest station's car park, say — not once the warning comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere in County Armagh the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Not in a rush on the side of High Row, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off properly.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, make sure it is shut before the bottle comes up.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check a second time, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Never go on to stage five.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Forkill?
The short order of things, starting with no starting the engine. Keep the ignition off too, because on plenty of diesels switching it on by itself runs your fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to dilute it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where your fuel is drawn from.
The staff at the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or any forecourt will usually help pushing the vehicle clear if asked. Your own drive around Forkill is the place it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Leave the M77 — over 50 miles out of Forkill — at the first exit. Distance counts — a quick hop across Forkill makes a smaller job than driving under 10 miles to Newry — so say about how far it went.
When our engineers turn up in Forkill, what happens?
By the local primary school, near the centre or on your own driveway: wherever your car has stopped, our engineers come to it. We ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because the answers determine the work and our price. That quote comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Then the tank is emptied and the fuel system flushed thoroughly. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it does not wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, where needed, swapped; clean diesel in; then a check of your vehicle. We do not leave until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Unstarted vehicles usually mean a half-hour visit from arrival. The equipment is fine on a busy filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — so use the wait to check yours.
About Forkill
Forkill is a small locality in County Armagh, situated inland at an elevation of 67 metres, approximately 7.6 miles from Newry. Forkill is characterised by its semi-detached housing and is located near the villages of Dromintee, Mullaghbawn, and Jonesborough. Forkill has a population of around 502 people and is part of the wider rural area of County Armagh.
AdBlue drains round Forkill, and County Armagh beyond
Being a small village, Forkill shares its vans surrounding places — Mullaghbawn, Jonesborough — all the way through BT postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Our van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting BT35 9.
There's no need to move the car. 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 the vehicle where it sits. Ring and ask rather than guessing if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of the far end of the built-up part.
In short, for Forkill motorists
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across County Armagh, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway — so leave the vehicle off then call 0333 366 0103.