Cornbank: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done just where the vehicle sits in Cornbank, is usually all it needs when found before the 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.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel car need its own filler?
Plenty of modern diesels around Broomhill, as well as Cornbank, carry on two liquids; your motor takes just your diesel. AdBlue's own tank keeps it, and from there it is sent to the exhaust, where a spray cleans the fumes.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Some cars keep the AdBlue filler in your boot or under the bonnet; plenty of others place both together under one flap. Topping up your diesel side at the pump happens all the time. A driver who has to stop and work out where it goes usually tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and far less regularly. It's in that gap that the error lives.
AdBlue in the diesel tank in Cornbank: how it takes place
Rarely is it carelessness: normally three things coincide.
On a drive off Silverburn Drive before work, or in the car park at The Roadhouse on the way home: that's where the hurried top-up happens. What is the reason for the rush? As AdBlue gets low your car tells you, and if it is gone, limp mode kicks in.
Unfamiliar motors come second, too. Hire cars, new vehicles and company cars put their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap 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 started, carries on. Whether it happens in Deanburn or the middle of Cornbank, it is the same few seconds.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in Loanburn or a forecourt around Cornbank.
- Where it sits can mislead; the cap does not. AdBlue ones are often blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually don't.
- On plenty of vehicles, the size tells: AdBlue has the smaller filler neck.
- Check inside the fuel flap: many motors have a label there saying which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If the filler isn't by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver will know. Ask when you pick up a rental or fleet car — from Curriehill's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever across Midlothian that is.
- Not in a rush on the side of Brockwood Avenue, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check the diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish once the tank fills or the bottle runs dry; until then, pour gently through its own spout.
- Shut the cap, and check again — confirm your diesel filler remained closed throughout. After that, start the car.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you have already poured into the diesel side. Step five stays off limits.
Cornbank: already put AdBlue in your diesel tank?
Short list, then. Top of that: your motor remains off. Don't switch the ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Diluting it with more diesel fails, because AdBlue sinks to the base rather than blending — and that is where the fuel is sucked from.
At a forecourt — Tesco, Asda or any other — the attendants will usually help roll the vehicle away, if you ask. If you are on your own drive around Cornbank, leave the vehicle where it is.
Already started? Pull over once it's sensible, then turn off. The next junction is where to leave when you are on the M8, under 10 miles from Cornbank. Roughly how far did it go? Hopping across Cornbank is smaller work than a run of under 10 miles to Edinburgh, so tell us.
What happens when our technicians get there around Cornbank
Outside the local primary school, near The Fitness Academy or on your own drive: wherever the vehicle has stopped, our engineers come to it. Which liquid got in, the quantity, and if it ran: we ask since the answers decide the work and quote. Nobody heads out until you've heard the quote over the phone.
The system is then cleaned thoroughly, once that tank is emptied. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own — which is why the flush counts more with AdBlue than with petrol. The filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running smoothly.
Unrun cars usually mean a half-hour job from arrival. The kit is safe on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a driveway late at night. 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's worth checking yours whilst we are on the way.
About Cornbank, for a moment
Cornbank is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Midlothian, with a mix of semi-detached housing and a population of around 3688 residents. Cornbank sits at an elevation of 222 metres, close to the nearby towns of Penicuik and Cuiken, and is approximately 8.5 miles from Edinburgh. Cornbank forms part of the wider residential area surrounding Edinburgh, with easy access to the city and its amenities. Cornbank is also near Deanburn, another local community in the region.
AdBlue drains across Midlothian, Cornbank included
As a residential suburb, Cornbank has the same vans as surrounding areas — Penicuik, Cuiken — all the way across EH postcodes and the wider area around them. A postcode starting EH26 9 gets the van to you fastest.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. Anywhere it sits — beside The Penicuik Centre, in a layby heading to Greenhill Park, at home — that's where it gets drained. Ring and ask rather than assuming if you are near a border, or somewhere hard to describe, like the back of War Memorial.
Cornbank motorists: the short version
First, the cap; after that, the tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere around Midlothian, if AdBlue has gone in your diesel tank all the same — so leave it off and ring 0333 366 0103.