AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Maghaberry: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and the ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, if your motor hasn't run, it is emptied and fully cleaned where the car is in Maghaberry. Here in advance? In that case what follows covers how it happens and how to stop it ever happening.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Not one liquid but two: that is how many modern diesels around Maghaberry and Lurganville run, with diesel for the motor. Your exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: dosed into the fumes to clean it, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Plenty of motors have a single flap for both, while others put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. At the petrol pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. It is in the gap that the mistake happens.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank happen in Maghaberry?
It is rarely carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low your car tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Heugh Road before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village on the way home.
Then the vehicle is strange. A hire car, a new car 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.
No part stops the pour after it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Halfpenny Gate or the middle of Maghaberry: it is the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Whether a Maghaberry forecourt or a drive over in Mazetown, spend a few seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- Blue and marking: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Check inside your fuel flap: many cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by the diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask when you collect a rental or fleet car — at the nearest station's car park, perhaps — not when the warning appears.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Anywhere across County Antrim the light comes on, here is a routine for that day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of South Crescent.
- Silly as it sounds, speaking "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew the cap works — after you've located the filler and read the cap.
- The two behind a single flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel filler stays shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start the car, shut the cap and look a second time that the diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Never carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Maghaberry already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the engine. The fuel pump starts on many diesels the moment the ignition is switched on — and so keep it off. Don't top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue does not mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is pulled from.
At a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or another — the attendants will usually help push the car clear, if you ask. Your own drive in Maghaberry is the place it stays.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. The next exit means where to leave if you are on the M77, over 50 miles from Maghaberry. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Lisburn, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Maghaberry.
What happens when we turn up around Maghaberry
Our engineers come to the car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside the local primary school, close to the centre or on your own drive. Both the work and the quote rest on three replies — which liquid, what amount, and whether it's run — so our technicians ask. The price comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
Then the tank is drained and your system flushed thoroughly. More than with petrol, it matters here: crystals form, some metals are attacked, and none of it washes out on its own, however long it sits. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the car is tested. The motor is started next and tested to make sure it runs correctly, all before we leave.
If your motor has not run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Nothing in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Maghaberry and where it is
Maghaberry is a locality in County Antrim, situated inland at an elevation of 89 metres, approximately 6 miles from Lisburn. Maghaberry is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting its residential nature. Maghaberry sits near several nearby places, including Halfpenny Gate, Upper Ballinderry, and Moira, in the wider region of Northern Ireland.
AdBlue drains around Maghaberry and across County Antrim
Maghaberry is a small village, and the teams that cover it also work the towns near it, Upper Ballinderry and Moira among them, across the BT postcode area. Give a postcode beginning BT67 0, and the van arrives fastest.
Moving the vehicle is not necessary. Wherever it stands — beside a street just off the centre, on a lay-by en route to the green space at the edge of the village, at home — that is where it is emptied. If you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of the far end of the built-up part, ring and ask rather than assuming.
In short, for Maghaberry motorists
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway, leave the car off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel drains it where it sits, anywhere around County Antrim.