AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Burntisland: Why It Occurs and How to Avoid It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out right where your vehicle stands in Burntisland, is usually what it needs when found before your engine runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many newer diesels on the roads round Burntisland and Easter Aberdour carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to your exhaust, and there a spray treats the fumes.
Each tank has its own filler. On a lot of cars the two sit side by side under the same flap; on others the AdBlue filler is in the boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is fuelled at the pump all the time. Someone who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less commonly. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank takes place around Burntisland
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from the car, and letting it run dry leads to limp mode — hence a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off High Street, or at Silver Tassie on the way home after work.
Unfamiliar cars come second, as well. Rentals, new motors and company motors place their fillers differently, and the hand reaches for the cap used on the old one.
No part stops the tip once it has started, because a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds decide it, in the middle of Burntisland or out in Kirkton.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Be it a Burntisland forecourt or a driveway over in Kinghorn, spend a few seconds over these before any goes in.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by position.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Open the flap and check for a label — many vehicles mark what belongs in each inlet just there.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it is in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you collect a rental or fleet car — from the nearest station's car park, perhaps — not once the warning comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of the diesel tank when you top up
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around Fife that is.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Kirkgate.
- Silly as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap works — after you have found the filler and read it.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where both sit under a flap, confirm it is shut before lifting the bottle.
- Gently does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it's full or the bottle runs out.
- Shut the cap, then check once more — making sure the diesel cap stayed shut throughout. After that, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into the diesel side. Skip stage five entirely.
Burntisland: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Short list, then. First: the engine remains off. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Filling up with diesel will not thin it: instead, AdBlue drops to the base of the tank, just where fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help roll the vehicle away from the pump if you are on a forecourt — the Morrisons, the Esso or anywhere else. Your own drive in Burntisland is where it should stay.
Already started? Pull over when it's sensible, then turn off. The next exit is the place to come off if you're on the M90, under 10 miles from Burntisland. A short hop across Burntisland is a smaller job than a run towards Edinburgh, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers turn up in Burntisland
By the local primary school, close to Museum of Communication or on your own driveway: wherever the car has stopped, our engineers come to it. Both the work and the price rest on three answers — what fluid, which amount, and whether it's run — so we ask. The quote comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
Then that tank is drained and the system rinsed thoroughly. Unlike petrol, AdBlue forms crystals and attacks certain fuel-system metals, and neither clears away by itself. Hence it counts more. A test comes last: before that, clean diesel goes in, and the filter is cleaned or changed as needed. Before leaving, our technicians fire it up and check that it's running correctly.
With pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine hasn't run need about half an hour after our technicians are there. Nothing in advance; you settle up on the day. Afterwards, a VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for your insurer. It's worth looking at your insurance while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with many policies.
About Burntisland, briefly
Burntisland is a coastal town in Fife, situated on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, with the town centre at an elevation of around 15 metres. Burntisland has a mix of housing types, but is predominantly composed of flats, and is located near other small communities such as Kirkton and Pettycur. Burntisland is close to Edinburgh, Scotland's capital city, which is approximately 7.5 miles away. Burntisland has a population of around 6129 people, according to recent estimates.
AdBlue drains about Burntisland, and Fife beyond
Being a coastal town, Burntisland has the same vans as surrounding areas — Orrock, Pettycur — all the way through KY postcodes and the wider area beyond. Quickest of all: give a KY3 9 postcode for our van.
No need to move your car. The drain happens right there, be it a drive, a street near Burntisland Burgh Chambers, or a layby on the way to Burntisland Conservation Area. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you're near a boundary, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Burntisland Heritage Exhibition.
In short, for Burntisland people
Before you pour, read the cap. If AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank anyway, leave the vehicle off and phone 0333 366 0103. Petrol in Diesel empties it where it stands, anywhere in Fife.