Preventing AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Portballintrae: Why It Occurs
Pause reading a minute if your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. Around Portballintrae, finding it before your engine turns normally leaves draining and a thorough flush on the spot. The rest of this page covers why it occurs and how to make sure it does not — handy if you're reading ahead of time.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel goes to the motor — yet many newer diesels seen about Portballintrae and Ballyrashane carry a second liquid too. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the gas to clean them, from a separate tank.
There's a filler on every tank. Under one flap, side by side: that is the layout on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the petrol pump, your diesel side gets filled constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less often, usually from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. That gap is where the slip lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Portballintrae
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out altogether, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Frederick Crescent before work, or in the car park at the pub in the village on the way home.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's a second thing: an unfamiliar motor.
No part halts the pour once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. Whether it occurs in Bushmills or the middle of Portballintrae, it's the same few seconds.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Check these before pouring, on a forecourt around Portballintrae or a driveway over in Moss-Side. A few seconds, that's all.
- Blue and lettering: an AdBlue cap is often blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally does not. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of motors fit AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Plenty of vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- In the boot or under the bonnet: that is where your filler is if it is not by the diesel cap, and the handbook tells you which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park at the nearest station? Check with the person who drove the car last before leaving, not when the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach your diesel tank
Wherever around County Antrim the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of School Street.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft and it works.
- The two behind a single flap? Then confirm the lid on your diesel side is still closed before raising the bottle.
- Gently is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Close the cap and check a second time. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Spot at step two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? Then stop just there. Never carry on to stage five.
Portballintrae: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
Do not start the motor: that is how the short order of things starts. Leave your ignition off as well, since on many diesels it by itself starts the pump. Filling up with diesel won't dilute it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, right where the fuel is taken from.
On a forecourt — the nearest petrol station, another forecourt nearby or another — the attendants will normally help roll the vehicle away, when you ask. Your own drive in Portballintrae is the place it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your engine has already run. Leave the M77 — over 50 miles out of Portballintrae — at the first exit. A short hop across Portballintrae is a smaller job than a run towards Derry, under 50 miles away, and so tell us about how far it went.
When our engineers arrive around Portballintrae, what occurs?
We come to the vehicle wherever it has stopped, whether that's outside the local primary school, close to the centre or on your own drive. Both the work and our quote depend on three replies — which fluid, which quantity, and whether it has run — so our engineers ask. That price is given over the phone, before any van leaves.
After that: draining, then a full flush of the entire system. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and eats at certain fuel-system metals, and neither washes away unaided. That is why it matters more. After your filter has been flushed — or replaced, where required — clean diesel goes in, and finally your car is tested. Your engine is fired up next and tested to be sure it runs correctly, all before we go.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor has not run take roughly half an hour after our engineers are there. No money in advance; you settle up on the day. At the end, a VAT invoice and a report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. It is worth checking your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Portballintrae
Portballintrae is a small coastal locality in County Antrim, situated near the popular tourist destinations of Bushmills and Portrush. Portballintrae sits at a low elevation of around 13 metres, overlooking the sea in a scenic part of Northern Ireland's coastline. Portballintrae has a population of approximately 678 people, living in predominantly detached housing, and is within driving distance of the city of Derry.
AdBlue drains around Portballintrae and across County Antrim
Portballintrae is a coastal area, and our vans that cover it also work the towns near it, Dunseverick and Portrush among them, across the BT postcode area. Quote a postcode that starts BT57 8, and the van arrives quickest.
The car doesn't need to move. Draining happens right there, be it a driveway, a street near a street just off the centre, or a layby towards the green space at the edge of the village. Tricky to pin down, like the back of the far end of the built-up part? Close to a border? Asking is better than guessing, and so ring.
The short version for Portballintrae drivers
Tip no AdBlue until you have read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off then phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in County Antrim.