AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Newcastle: How It Happens and How to Prevent It
AdBlue already in the diesel tank? Then put this page aside for now, keep your ignition and engine off, then ring 0333 366 0103. Around Newcastle, catching it before the motor turns normally leaves a drain and a thorough flush where it stands. The remainder of this page explains why it happens and how to ensure it does not — useful if you are reading ahead of time.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
No single liquid but two: that is what many newer diesels near Newcastle and Castlewellan run, with diesel feeding the engine. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue goes: sprayed into the fumes to clean it, from a separate tank.
Different tanks, different fillers. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. At the pump, your diesel side is topped up all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes normally fills the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less frequently. Mistakes happen in that gap between them.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs in Newcastle
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
On a drive off B7041 before work, or in the car park outside the pub in the village heading home: that's where the rushed top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
Then your car is strange. A hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand gets to for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Third, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in just as easily, and once the pour begins, no part stops it. It takes seconds, whether in Bryansford or right in the heart of Newcastle.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Newcastle forecourt or a drive out in Ballykinler, take a couple of seconds on these before anything is poured in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is commonly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by position.
- Check the size: the smaller neck is, on many cars, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside the fuel flap frequently shows which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car picked up from somewhere like the car park outside the nearest station, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
On the day the light appears — anywhere you are in County Down — a simple routine to follow.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, engine off, and never in a rush beside B7065 at the roadside.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, once you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, but it does the trick.
- The two under a single flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel side is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, tip slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap, then look once more — making sure your diesel filler stayed closed throughout. After that, start the car.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into your diesel side? Then stop just there. Never go on to step five.
AdBlue in your diesel tank already, around Newcastle?
Short list, then. Top of that: your motor remains unstarted. On plenty of diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so don't switch it on. Thinning it with more diesel won't work, because AdBlue sinks to the bottom instead of mixing — and that is where your fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or another — the staff will normally help push the vehicle away, when you ask. If you are on your own driveway in Newcastle, leave the vehicle where it is.
Already started? Stop once it is sensible, then turn off. Leave the M77 — over 50 miles out of Newcastle — at the next exit. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Newcastle is smaller work than a trip of under 25 miles to Newry, so say.
Newcastle: what occurs when our engineers turn up
Our van comes to the vehicle wherever it stopped — your own drive, near the centre, or by the local primary school. Both the work and the price depend on three replies — which liquid, what amount, and whether it's run — so our engineers ask. That quote is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
Emptying your tank comes next, followed by a full flush of the system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes out by itself. Hence it counts more. Filter flushed or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of your car. Then we fire it up and confirm it runs correctly before we go.
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 busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of plenty of insurance policies — and so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Newcastle, briefly
Newcastle is a small coastal town in County Down, Northern Ireland, situated at the foot of the Mourne Mountains. Newcastle sits at a low elevation of around 8 metres, looking out over the Irish Sea. Newcastle is close to nearby villages such as Bryansford and Dundrum, and is a short distance from the city of Newry. Newcastle has a population of approximately 7943 people, predominantly living in detached housing.
AdBlue drains across County Down, Newcastle included
Over BT postcodes, our teams covering Newcastle — a coastal town — work the nearby locations too, Annsborough and Dundrum among them. A postcode starting BT33 0 gets our van to you fastest.
Moving the vehicle isn't needed. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near a street just off the centre, a lay-by on the way to the green space at the edge of the village, a drive. If you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain like the back of the far end of the built-up part, ring and ask instead of guessing.
Newcastle motorists: the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will empty it wherever it stands, anywhere around County Down: keep the vehicle off and ring 0333 366 0103.