Hilltown: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Leave the motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 now — the rest can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Normally, when your motor has not run, it's drained and fully purged where your car sits in Hilltown. If you're reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle, and its separate tank
Diesel goes to the motor — but plenty of newer diesels driven round Hilltown and Mayobridge carry a second fluid too. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into the exhaust stream to clean it.
There's a filler on every tank. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the layout on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits beneath the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. Someone who has to stop and think where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less often. The slip lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen around Hilltown?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off B7041 before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home.
Then the car is new. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old one.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, once started, keeps on. Whether it occurs in Corbet or the middle of Hilltown, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Kilcoo or a forecourt around Hilltown, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the word "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- The size. On plenty of cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of vehicles show what belongs in each filler right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that is where the filler is if it is not by your diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at the nearest station? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, rather than once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere across County Down the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of High Row, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" out loud while you unscrew it. It seems daft. It works.
- Both under one flap? So confirm the cap on your diesel side is still shut before raising the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, till it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure the diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Don't go on to stage five.
Hilltown: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with not starting your motor. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment your ignition is switched on — so keep it off. AdBlue does not mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
At a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or another — the attendants will normally help roll the vehicle clear, when you ask. Your own driveway in Hilltown is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. Leave the M77 — over 50 miles out of Hilltown — at the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Newry, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Hilltown.
Hilltown: what occurs when our engineers get there
The van comes to the car wherever it has come to rest — your own drive, near the centre, or by the local primary school. Which liquid was put in, the quantity, and whether it ran: our engineers ask because the answers set both work and quote. No one heads out before you've had our quote over the phone.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the fuel system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why the flush matters more here than with petrol. After your filter is cleaned — or renewed, where needed — fresh diesel goes in, and then the car is tested. Before we go, we start it and make sure that it's running properly.
Unstarted cars mostly mean a half-hour visit from arrival. The equipment is fine on a live forecourt, and hushed enough for a residential street after dark. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. While we travel, take a look at your insurance documents; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Hilltown itself
Hilltown is a locality in County Down, situated inland at an elevation of 132 metres, approximately 8 miles from Newry. Hilltown is characterized by its semi-detached housing and is located near other small settlements such as Corbet, Drumlough, and Rathfriland. Hilltown has a population of around 1721 residents, and its proximity to Newry makes it a commuter base for the city. Hilltown is also relatively distant from London, at a distance of 312 miles.
AdBlue drains about Hilltown, and County Down beyond
Hilltown is a small village, and our teams that cover it also work the towns around it, Drumlough and Rathfriland among them, across the BT postcode area. A postcode starting BT34 5 gets the van to you fastest.
Shifting your car isn't needed. 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: our technicians drain the car where it is. Awkward to pin down, like the back of the far end of the built-up part? Close to a border? Checking beats guessing, so phone.
For Hilltown motorists, the short version
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere across County Down, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — and so leave the car off then call 0333 366 0103.