AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Millbank: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
Pause here for a moment when the diesel tank already holds AdBlue in it: ignition off, engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done right where the car sits around Millbank, is normally what it needs when caught before the engine runs. Not happened yet? Further down, the page covers the reasons it happens and the ways to prevent it for good.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
No single liquid but two: that's how many newer diesels near Millbank and Mallusk run, with diesel for your motor. The exhaust, not the motor, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to clean them, from its own tank.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. 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 your boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side gets filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank take place in Millbank?
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things coincide.
Haste follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and an empty tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a drive off Chalet Road, or on the way home in the car park at the pub in the village.
Unfamiliar motors come next, as well. Hire cars, new cars and company vehicles place their fillers differently, and the hand goes for the cap it used on the old one.
A spouted bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. And so the pour, after started, keeps on. Whether it happens in Roughfort or the middle of Millbank, it is the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and the diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these before pouring, on a forecourt around Millbank or a drive over in Templepatrick. A few seconds, no more.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Plenty of vehicles give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on plenty of vehicles. Check for it.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, 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, not once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
The day the light comes on, anywhere in County Antrim, use this routine.
- Not in a rush on the side of North Crescent, not on a slope, not with the engine running: park and switch off properly.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, read the cap, and say the name "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- The diesel cap remains on. When the two share a flap, confirm it is closed before the bottle comes up.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Only after that, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Do not go on to step five.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Millbank already?
Short list, then. Top of that: your motor stays off. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not weaken it: rather than mixing, AdBlue sinks to the base of your tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
The attendants at the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or another forecourt will normally help to push the vehicle clear if asked. At home around Millbank? Then the car remains put.
If your motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Leave the M77 — over 50 miles out of Millbank — at the next junction. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Millbank is less a job than a trip of under 10 miles to Belfast, so say.
When our technicians arrive around Millbank, what takes place?
Our van comes to the vehicle anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, beside the centre, or outside the local primary school. Which fluid went in, the quantity, and if it ran: our technicians ask since the answers decide both work and quote. You hear that price by phone, before anyone heads out.
Emptying your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks some fuel-system metals, and none of that clears out unaided. That is why it counts more. Testing comes at the end: before that, fresh diesel goes in, and the filter is flushed or replaced as needed. After that our engineers start it and check it runs properly before leaving.
If the engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we're there, using pumps that are safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. Paying is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer's report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Millbank and where it is
Millbank is a locality in County Antrim, situated inland at an elevation of 107 metres, approximately 8 miles northwest of Belfast. Millbank is characterized by its predominantly detached housing stock, reflecting the suburban expansion of the Belfast area. Millbank sits near several smaller settlements, including Roughfort, Craigarogan, and Ballyrobert, in the rolling countryside of northern Northern Ireland.
AdBlue drains in Millbank and across County Antrim
As a small village, Millbank shares its vans nearby places — Craigarogan, Ballyrobert — right through BT postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quote a postcode beginning BT36 8, and the van arrives quickest.
No need to shift your car. The drain takes place on the spot, whether a driveway, a street near a street just off the centre, or a layby towards the green space at the edge of the village. Assuming doesn't help at the back of the far end of the built-up part, on a border, or anywhere awkward to pin down; ring and ask.
For Millbank people, the short version
Before you pour, read the cap. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it wherever it is, wherever around County Antrim: switch the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103.