How It Occurs and How to Prevent It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Lisnarick
Pause reading a minute if the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Caught before your motor runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is in Lisnarick. Here before the event? Then the rest explains how it comes about and how to prevent it ever happening.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Many modern diesels on the roads round Lisnarick and Ederney carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Your exhaust, not your motor, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to fresh it, from its own tank.
There is a filler on every tank. Other cars keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others have the two side by side under one flap. Topping up the diesel side at the pump goes on 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 often. That gap is where the error lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place in Lisnarick
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from the car, and running out leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Crown Street, perhaps at the pub in the village on the way home that evening.
New-to-you motors are next, as well. Hire cars, new motors and company motors place their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap it used on the old one.
Lastly, the spout goes in: diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in as readily, and after the tip begins, nothing halts it. It's a few seconds, be it out in Irvinestown or bang in the heart of Lisnarick.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, at a forecourt in Lisnarick or a drive out in Blaney. Seconds, no more.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Go by the cap, not where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — plenty of motors show which goes in which inlet right there.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where the filler sits if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — if you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across County Fermanagh that is.
- Stop somewhere level, motor off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Crom Street.
- Find the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It sounds daft. It does the trick.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave it on.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then check again — making sure the diesel cap remained shut throughout. After that, start the car.
If at step two or three you find you have already poured into your diesel side, stop there. Skip stage five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Lisnarick already?
The short order of things, starting with not starting the motor. Leave the ignition off as well, since on plenty of diesels it by itself starts your pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
If you're at a forecourt, whether it's the the nearest petrol station or the another forecourt nearby, ask the attendants to help push the vehicle clear of the pump. Your own driveway in Lisnarick is the place it stays.
Already started? Pull over once it's sensible, then switch off. Come off the M77 — over 50 miles out of Lisnarick — at the next junction. About how far did it go? Crossing Lisnarick is less a job than a run of under 50 miles towards Derry, and so tell us.
Lisnarick: what takes place when our technicians get there
The van reaches the car wherever it has come to rest — your own driveway, near the centre, or outside the local primary school. Our engineers ask what got in, roughly how much, and if it has run, since the replies decide this work and our quote. That quote comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of the system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes away unaided. Hence it matters more. After the fuel filter has been flushed — or renewed, where required — clean diesel goes in, and finally your car gets tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running properly.
Most jobs are done in about half an hour once our technicians arrive, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps our engineers use are safe on a busy forecourt and quiet after dark beside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. It is worth looking at your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover is included with many policies.
About Lisnarick itself
Lisnarick is a small locality in County Fermanagh, situated inland at an elevation of 66 metres. Lisnarick lies near the villages of Irvinestown and Killadeas, and is close to the town of Kesh. Lisnarick is characterised by its predominantly detached housing stock, and is located approximately 39 miles from the city of Derry. Lisnarick is a relatively small community, with a population of around 505 people.
Lisnarick and County Fermanagh: AdBlue drains across the area
Lisnarick is a small village, and our vans that cover it also work the places around it, Killadeas and Kesh among them, across the BT postcode area. The van gets to you fastest with a postcode starting BT94 1.
The vehicle does not need to shift. A driveway, 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 engineers drain it where it is. Tricky to explain, like the back of the far end of the built-up part? By a county line? Checking beats assuming, so phone.
The short version for Lisnarick motorists
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it waits, anywhere across County Fermanagh.