AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kilkeel: Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It
Leave the engine and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Usually, when your motor hasn't turned, it's emptied and fully rinsed where your vehicle is in Kilkeel. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel feeds the engine — but many newer diesels driven about Kilkeel and Killowen carry another liquid as well. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Topping up the diesel side at the pump happens all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less frequently. The slip lives in that gap.
AdBlue in the diesel tank around Kilkeel: how it happens
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things coming up together.
Haste follows from the warning. The car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens in a rush, before work on a drive off B7065, or on the way home in the car park at the pub in the village.
The old car's filler is where the hand reaches — but a rental car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is a second thing: an unfamiliar vehicle.
A spouted bottle meets no obstacle at a diesel filler no more than at an AdBlue one. And so the tip, after begun, carries on. Dunnaval or the heart of Kilkeel: it takes the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
A couple of seconds is all these take — so run through them before you tip anything, on a drive in Rostrevor or a forecourt around Kilkeel.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it instead of going by position.
- Look at the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — many motors show what goes in which filler right there.
- Cannot find it next to your diesel filler? In that case check below the bonnet or inside the boot — the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, say at the car park outside the nearest station? Ask the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, not once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
For the day the light appears — anywhere you are across County Down — a routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of High Row, not on a slope, not with your engine running: park then switch off properly.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap works — after you've found your filler and read the cap.
- The diesel cap stays on. When both sit under a flap, make sure it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Stop when your tank is topped up or the bottle is empty; before that, tip slowly through the own spout.
- Shut the cap, and look once more — confirm the diesel cap remained closed throughout. After that, start the vehicle.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Stage five is off limits.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank around Kilkeel already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. Leave the ignition off too, because on many diesels switching it on alone starts the pump. Diluting it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of mixing — and that is where the fuel is pulled from.
On a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or another — the staff will usually help push the car away, when you ask. At home around Kilkeel? So the vehicle remains put.
Already started? Pull over once it's sensible, then switch off. Come off the M55 — over 50 miles out of Kilkeel — at the first junction. Distance counts — a quick hop across Kilkeel makes a smaller job than heading under 25 miles towards Newry — so say roughly how far it went.
What occurs when we arrive around Kilkeel
Our engineers come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside the local primary school, close to the centre or on your own drive. The answers determine this work and our quote, and so our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it's run. You get that price by phone, before anyone heads out.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the fuel system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at some fuel-system metals, and neither clears away unaided. That is why it matters more. The filter flushed or, where it must be, replaced; fresh diesel in; then a check of your car. The engine is started next and checked to confirm it runs properly, all before our engineers go.
If your engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house 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 part of many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Kilkeel itself
Kilkeel is a small coastal town in County Down, situated on the shores of Carlingford Lough. Kilkeel has a population of around 3841 people and is characterised by predominantly detached housing. Kilkeel sits near the villages of Dunnaval, Atticall, and Annalong, and is approximately 16.6 miles from the city of Newry. Kilkeel is located at a low elevation of around 2 metres above sea level.
AdBlue drains across County Down, Kilkeel included
As a coastal town, Kilkeel shares its vans nearby areas — Atticall, Annalong — right through BT postcodes and the surrounding area around them. A postcode starting BT34 4 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle doesn't need to move. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street close to a street just off the centre, a lay-by on the way to the green space at the edge of the village, a drive. Guessing doesn't help behind the far end of the built-up part, on a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down; ring and check.
The short version for Kilkeel people
Before you pour, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around County Down, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off then phone 0333 366 0103.