Bryans: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
Keep your motor and ignition off and ring 0333 366 0103 first — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in the diesel tank. Caught before the engine runs, it is usually a drain and a thorough flush, done where the vehicle is around Bryans. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel motor
Diesel goes to your motor — but plenty of newer diesels seen round Bryans and Easthouses hold a second liquid too. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to fresh it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has one filler of its own. Under one flap, next to each other: that is the layout on many cars. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in the boot instead. Diesel gets filled at each filling station call-out, again and again. Much less commonly, the AdBlue side is topped up — normally from a bottle, by someone working out where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur in Bryans?
Carelessness rarely causes it. Instead is three things coming up together.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue brings a message from your car, and running dry leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off B6482, or outside Rowan Tree Inn on the way home after work.
The old car's cap is where your hand goes — yet a rental car, a new car or a company car keeps the fillers somewhere else. That is a second thing: a strange vehicle.
Lastly, the bottle fits: a diesel filler or AdBlue filler, it goes in as readily, and after the pour starts, nothing halts it. It takes seconds, be it out in Mayfield or right in the heart of Bryans.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Before you tip anything, whether on a driveway in Gowkshill or a forecourt in Bryans, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually does not. Go by the cap, not its position.
- The size. On many motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- A label inside your fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Check for it.
- Cannot find it beside the diesel filler? In that case look below the bonnet or in your boot — the handbook says which.
- The person who drove it last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Newtongrange, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
Anywhere across Midlothian the light comes on, this is a routine for the day.
- Stop on level, engine off, with time in hand — never rushing on the side of Blackcot Avenue.
- Find the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and speak the word "AdBlue" aloud as you unscrew it. It sounds daft. It works.
- If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle — and leave it on.
- Tip slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it is full or when the bottle is empty.
- Before starting your car, shut the cap and look again that the diesel cap never came off.
Stop there if you find, at step two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Never carry on to step five.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Bryans already?
What follows is a short order of things, starting with no starting the motor. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Topping up with diesel will not dilute it: instead, AdBlue sinks to the base of that tank, right where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — BP, Shell or any other — the attendants will usually help push the vehicle away, when you ask. If you're on your own driveway around Bryans, leave the vehicle where it sits.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if your engine has already run. On the M8, under 15 miles from Bryans, that means the next junction. About how far did it go? Crossing Bryans is smaller work than a run of under 10 miles towards Edinburgh, and so tell us.
When our engineers get there around Bryans, what happens?
By the local primary school, near St Luke's and St Anne's or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our technicians come to it. What liquid was put in, the amount, and whether it ran: we ask since the answers set both work and price. That quote comes on the call, ahead of any van leaving.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the entire system. With AdBlue that counts more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own. After the filter is flushed — or renewed, where required — clean diesel is added, and then your vehicle is tested. Your engine is started next and tested to be sure it runs smoothly, all before our engineers head off.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour once our technicians get there, as long as the motor hasn't run — and the pumps we use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. Payment happens on the day, not upfront, and you receive the paperwork your insurer asks for: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. Misfuelling cover is included in many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to check yours.
About Bryans and where it is
Bryans is a locality in Midlothian, situated inland at an elevation of 131 metres, approximately 8 miles from Edinburgh. Bryans is characterized by its terraced housing and is part of the wider Edinburgh urban area. Bryans is close to nearby places such as Mayfield, Monkswood, and Newtongrange, and is home to a population of around 1621 residents.
AdBlue drains across Midlothian, Bryans included
Over EH postcodes, the teams covering Bryans — a small village — work the nearby locations too, Newtongrange and Monkswood included. Fastest of all: quote a EH22 5 postcode for the van.
The vehicle stays where it is. The drain takes place on the spot, be it a driveway, a street by Mayfield Community Club, or a lay-by on the way to Bryanswood. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Mayfield Library.
Bryans people: the short version
Before you tip, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same, leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel clears it where it stands, anywhere in Midlothian.