AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Bents: Why It Happens and How to Stop It
Keep your motor and ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your motor runs, it's normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where the car is around Bents. The remainder of this page covers why it takes place and how to ensure it does not — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
No single fluid but two: that is what plenty of newer diesels around Bents and Breich carry, with diesel for the engine. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas to clean it.
There is a filler on each tank. Plenty of cars share a single flap for the two, while others put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the petrol pump all the time. Far less commonly, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank occurs in Bents
Seldom is it carelessness: usually three things line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. Your car tells you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank sends the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up gets done quickly, before work on a driveway off Garden City, or heading home in the car park outside The Bentswood Inn.
The old car's cap is where the hand goes — yet a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That's the second factor: a new vehicle.
Lastly, the spout goes in: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it slides in as easily, and after the tip begins, nothing stops it. Stoneyburn or the middle of Bents: it is the same few seconds either way.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Be it a Bents forecourt or a drive over in Longford Crofts, take a couple of seconds on these before anything goes in.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap doesn't. AdBlue caps tend to be blue or bear the name "AdBlue" — diesel ones usually do not.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Lift the flap and check for a label — plenty of cars show what belongs in each filler right there.
- The handbook says which it is when the filler isn't next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- Ask the person who drove it last — before you leave, not when the light comes on — when you collect a hire or company car from somewhere like the car park at Breich.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
Wherever in West Lothian the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Switch off after you park — level ground, motor stopped, and not rushed by Redcroft Place at the roadside.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It seems silly. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — then leave the car on.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, till it is full or the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, close the cap and look again that the diesel cap was never came off.
Spot at step two or three that it has already gone into your diesel side? So stop just there. Never go on to step five.
Bents: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Don't start your motor: that is how the short order of things starts. On many diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so do not switch the vehicle on. Diluting it with more diesel fails, since AdBlue settles to the base instead of blending — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — BP, Shell or another — the attendants will usually help push the vehicle clear, if you ask. At home in Bents? So the vehicle stays where it is.
Already started? Stop when it is safe, then switch off. The next junction means the place to come off if you are on the M8, under 3 miles from Bents. Roughly how far did it go? Crossing Bents is less a job than a run of under 25 miles to Dunfermline, so say.
What occurs when our engineers arrive around Bents
By the local primary school, close to Church of Our Lady or on your own driveway: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Those answers settle this work and the quote, so our technicians ask what was put in, about how much, and whether it has run. On the call itself, you hear the quote — ahead of dispatch.
Emptying the tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of your system. Not like petrol, AdBlue leaves crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and none of that clears out unaided. That is why it matters more. Filter cleaned or, if it must be, replaced; clean diesel in; then a test of the car. We do not go until it has been started and is running properly.
With pumps fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the motor hasn't run need about half an hour once our engineers arrive. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and you get both once the job is done. Payment is on the day, with no money upfront. While we travel, take a look at your policy; many carry cover for misfuelling.
About Bents, briefly
Bents is a village situated on the riverside in West Lothian, with a mix of semi-detached housing and a population of around 871 residents. Bents sits at an elevation of 198 metres, near the communities of Stoneyburn, Loganlea, and Addiebrownhill. Bents is located approximately 17 miles from Dunfermline and is part of the wider Scottish countryside. Bents has a relatively small size, with a rural character shaped by its riverside setting.
AdBlue drains across West Lothian, Bents included
Bents is a village, and the teams that cover it also work the places around it, Loganlea and Addiebrownhill among them, across the EH postcode area. The van reaches you fastest with a postcode starting EH47 8.
The vehicle remains put. Draining takes place on the spot, be it a drive, a street by Wee Croft (Stoneyburn and Bents), or a layby on the way to Glenview Park. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of Stoneyburn Community Education Centre.
In short, for Bents people
Read the cap before you pour. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank regardless, leave the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it sits, anywhere around West Lothian.