What Now? AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Whitehead
Everything hinges on a single fact: if the motor has been run since the AdBlue was added — more than anything else. Out in Magheramorne or right in Whitehead, an unstarted motor must stay unrun. Phone 0333 366 0103 with your ignition and engine both off. Across Whitehead, that is generally emptied and flushed on the spot. If it has run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. A bigger job, yes, yet the same opening step.
Find the scenario below that matches yours, wherever around County Antrim it happened.
AdBlue in a diesel on a Whitehead forecourt
Only at this point, bottle yet in your hand, you realise that the cap you opened was the wrong one, right at the petrol pump. Perhaps you're at the the nearest petrol station, perhaps at the another forecourt nearby, perhaps somewhere else in Whitehead.
Put simply: no better spot exists to spot it. Just the tank has AdBlue; no component beyond it has drawn any in.
Clearing the petrol pump is no reason to run it — so do not get back in. Get the attendants to help pushing it into a space, hold on to the bottle, then phone us from there. Draining it there at the pump is fine if it cannot be shifted, since the equipment is explosion-proof.
Whitehead, at home: AdBlue in your diesel tank
Several days had passed with the dash light on. You bought a bottle, poured it in on the drive, and only when you put the empty bottle in the recycling did you look a second time at the cap. Homes just off Chalet Road get caught out as often as everywhere else.
The upshot: no driving since makes it nearly equal to finding it at the petrol pump. Diesel and AdBlue stay apart: the AdBlue settles to the base of your tank and remains put, no matter how long it waits.
Next: prevent any early drive by putting your keys in the house, then phone us. Ballystrudder or Whitehead: whichever your drive sits, that is where it is drained. Even at night, the pumps stay quiet enough for a driveway.
AdBlue in a diesel and already driving around Whitehead?
Lumpy running, smoke, falling power or a glowing dashboard started a mile or two beyond the top-up. Possibly it was on North Crescent, maybe on the way out towards Belfast, under 15 miles away.
In short: the AdBlue has been sucked through the system. Past the fuel filter, along the pipework, and — the further the mileage — deeper into the high-pressure pump and each injector. It goes further with every extra mile covered and every restart.
What to do: pull over where it's safe to do so and switch off. On the M77, over 50 miles from Whitehead, that means the next junction, not the services further on. Restarting it to check gets nothing — AdBlue doesn't clear on its own. Let us know the distance covered when you ring.
AdBlue in the wrong tank: hire, lease and company motors
It's a car you have had for a week. Your own vehicle either has no AdBlue or keeps it elsewhere, and so no one told you the AdBlue cap was just beside the diesel. Anyone, anywhere in County Antrim, might do the same.
What it means: the same as the situations above, depending on whether it has run, with one more step. Many hire and company contracts want the owner to approve work on your car.
Next: ring the hire company or the fleet manager first, then us — settling it before our arrival is quicker. Keep the vehicle switched off while the answer arrives, even if you're waiting at the nearest station or near the centre.
Not sure it was AdBlue in the diesel tank, Whitehead?
At times the fair answer is "I think so". Which cap came off, you can't recall; meanwhile the bottle weighs lighter than it ought to, and a whiff of ammonia hangs by your filler. Possibly it happened in a hurry at the school gates at the local primary school, or on a friend's drive in Mill Bay.
Meaning? Spills outside the filler don't touch the engine at all. AdBlue inside the diesel tank does. Any AdBlue in the tank will be drawn in by turning on the car, and the start would not settle which it is in any case.
Next: act as though it went in, then keep the engine off. Call us and describe what you saw; we would rather check a tank that turns out free of AdBlue than drain one that has already been run.
Whitehead: what every AdBlue drain has in common
Every situation gets the same opening to the job. Filling station, drive, the pub in the village's car park or a street by a street just off the centre — our van reaches your vehicle, and three questions follow: which liquid, which quantity, and whether it has run. On the phone, before dispatch, you are told the price, and those answers decide the job too.
Then the tank is cleared and the system flushed thoroughly, which matters more with AdBlue than with petrol: AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't rinse out on its own. Clean diesel goes in after the filter is flushed or replaced, and your car is then tested. Where your motor has not run, allow roughly half an hour on site, for most jobs.
Lastly, our technicians start it. Before our engineers head off, it's tested to confirm it runs correctly on clean diesel. Our engineers do the whole job where your car is, and permanent damage is very unusual if it has been spotted soon. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Plenty of insurance policies include misfuelling cover, and so it is worth checking yours whilst we're on the way.
About Whitehead
Whitehead is a coastal locality in County Antrim, situated near the towns of Ballystrudder and Ballycarry, with views out to the Irish Sea. Whitehead has a population of around 879 people and is characterized by detached housing, which reflects its suburban and residential nature. Whitehead sits at an elevation of 29 metres, close to the scenic Islandmagee peninsula. Whitehead is located approximately 14 miles from Belfast, making it a commuter base for the city.
AdBlue drains around Whitehead, and across County Antrim too
Whitehead is a coastal area, and the same teams that cover it work the towns around it too, Ballycarry and Islandmagee among them, across the BT postcode area. The whereabouts is quickest from a postcode that starts BT38 9.
Parked en route to the green space at the edge of the village, or bang in the heart of Whitehead, the car remains put — there's no need to shift it at all. The van empties it where it stands. Tricky to pin down? Close to the far end of the built-up part or a county line? Asking beats assuming, and so phone.
Your situation, summed up
Where it hasn't started, phone and leave it off. Whichever line fits, Petrol in Diesel handles from there on 0333 366 0103, across County Antrim and within Whitehead — after you stop, switch off then ring, if it's run.