Broomhill: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep the engine and ignition off then call 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before your engine runs, it is normally a drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is in Broomhill. Here in advance? Then what follows explains why it comes about and how to prevent it happening at all.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel feeds the engine — yet plenty of current diesels seen about Broomhill and Eskhill carry another liquid as well. The exhaust, not your engine, is where AdBlue ends up: dosed into the fumes to clean them, from a separate tank.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. At the pump, the diesel side is topped up all the time. Much less regularly, the AdBlue side is filled — mostly from a bottle, by a person working out where it goes. It is in that gap that the error lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Broomhill?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Craigiebield Crescent before work, or in the car park at The Crescent on the way home.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new vehicle 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.
A spout-topped bottle finds no resistance at a diesel filler any more than at an AdBlue one. So the tip, after begun, keeps on. It takes seconds, whether in Town Centre or right in the centre of Broomhill.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Loanburn or a forecourt in Broomhill, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On many cars the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- The flap. Look inside the fuel flap for a label. Many vehicles say there which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by the diesel cap, it is in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Check when you collect a rental or company car — at Curriehill's car park, say — not when the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
The day the light comes on, wherever around Midlothian, use this routine.
- Pull in somewhere level, engine off, with time to spare — never hurried on the side of Bog Road.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The two under one flap? Then make sure the cap on your diesel filler stays shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Slowly is best, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Close the cap and check again. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start your car.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Don't go on to step five.
Already put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Broomhill?
Brief list, then. Top of it: the engine remains unstarted. On many diesels the ignition alone runs the fuel pump, so don't switch the vehicle on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is drawn from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
If you are on a forecourt, whether it's the Tesco or the Asda, ask the attendants to help roll your car clear of the pump. If you're on your own drive around Broomhill, leave it where it sits.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. The next exit means the place to leave when you're on the M8, under 10 miles from Broomhill. A short hop across Broomhill is a smaller job than a run towards Edinburgh, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Broomhill: what occurs when our technicians arrive
Our engineers come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside the local primary school, near Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church or on your own driveway. Those replies determine this work and the quote, so our technicians ask what got in, roughly how much, and whether it has run. No one sets off until you have had the price by phone.
The system is then purged thoroughly, once your tank is emptied. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more with AdBlue than with petrol. After the filter is cleaned — or replaced, where needed — clean diesel is added, and finally your vehicle is tested. Next we start it and make sure it runs smoothly before leaving.
With pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs where the motor hasn't run take about half an hour once our technicians arrive. Your insurer usually wants an engineer's report and your VAT invoice, and both are yours once the job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Before we get there, take a look at your insurance documents; many include cover for misfuelling.
About Broomhill
Broomhill is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Midlothian, with a mix of flat housing and local amenities. Broomhill sits near the Town Centre and Penicuik, overlooking the surrounding countryside from an elevation of 193 metres. Broomhill is located close to Edinburgh, Scotland's capital city, and is part of the wider Edinburgh urban area. Broomhill has a population of around 4060 residents, living in predominantly flat accommodation.
AdBlue drains across Midlothian, Broomhill included
As a residential suburb, Broomhill has the same vans as surrounding areas — Penicuik, Valleyfield — right across EH postcodes and the surrounding area around them. Quote a postcode beginning EH26 9, and the van arrives quickest.
The vehicle stays where it is. Our engineers drain it where it is — a side street near War Memorial, a lay-by on the way to Penicuik Pétanque Club piste, a driveway. Awkward to pin down, like the back of St James the Less? Close to a border? Asking is better than guessing, so ring.
In short, for Broomhill motorists
Before you tip, read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Midlothian, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank anyway — so leave the car off and phone 0333 366 0103.