How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Kinallen
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off and call 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a full flush, carried out right where the vehicle stands around Kinallen, is normally what it takes if found before your motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many current diesels on the roads around Kinallen and Drumlough carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
There is a filler for every tank. Under one flap, side by side: that's the layout on a lot of motors. On others, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel gets filled on every filling station visit, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is topped up far less regularly, usually from a bottle, and normally by somebody who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
AdBlue in your diesel tank around Kinallen: how it occurs
It's rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the vehicle, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — hence a hurried top-up, perhaps before work off Dunskey Street, or outside the pub in the village on the way home after work.
Then your car is strange. 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.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Waringsford or the heart of Kinallen: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Dromore or a forecourt around Kinallen, check these. They take a few seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap usually isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Many motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many motors. Look for it.
- The handbook. If your filler isn't by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver will know. Check as you collect a rental or company car — from the nearest station's car park, say — not once the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across County Down that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Heugh Road, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off properly.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Daft, yes, yet it works.
- Leave the diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting the vehicle, close the cap and look a second time that your diesel cap never came off.
Spot at stage two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? So stop right there. Step five stays out.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, in Kinallen?
Brief order, then. First: your engine stays unstarted. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the bottom of that tank, just where fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or another — the attendants will usually help roll your car clear, when you ask. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Kinallen.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Come off the M77 — over 50 miles out of Kinallen — at the first exit. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Lisburn, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Kinallen.
Kinallen: what takes place when our technicians arrive
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside the local primary school, near the centre or on your own driveway. We ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run, because the answers decide this work and the price. On the phone call itself, you are told our quote — before dispatch.
Your system is then purged thoroughly, once your tank is emptied. 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. Once the fuel filter has been flushed — or replaced, where required — clean diesel is added, and then the vehicle gets tested. The motor is fired up next and tested to confirm it runs smoothly, all before our engineers head off.
If your engine has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you are given the documents your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Kinallen
Kinallen is a locality in County Down, situated inland at an elevation of 133 metres, approximately 9 miles from Lisburn. Kinallen is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its rural setting. Kinallen is close to nearby places such as Waringsford, Dromara, and Ballela, and is home to a population of around 1430 people. Kinallen is located in the northern part of the island of Ireland, about 317 miles from London.
AdBlue drains across County Down, Kinallen included
Dromara and Ballela are among the towns around Kinallen, a small village, that the same vans cover, throughout BT postcodes. Fastest of all: quote a BT25 2 postcode to our van.
Moving the vehicle isn't needed. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to the green space at the edge of the village, a side street near a street just off the centre: our engineers drain it where it sits. Awkward to explain, like the back of the far end of the built-up part? Close to a border? Asking is better than assuming, so phone.
The short version for Kinallen people
Read the cap before you pour. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Keep the car switched off and call 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel empties it on the spot, across County Down.