Glencorse: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Prevent It?
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave the engine and the ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103. Usually, if the motor has not run, it's drained and thoroughly rinsed where your car is around Glencorse. Reading in advance? In that case the rest explains how it comes about and what to stop it ever happening.
Two fillers, two tanks: AdBlue in a diesel vehicle
Many newer diesels on the roads around Glencorse and Greenlaw Mains carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to the motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into the exhaust gas and cleans it.
Different tanks, different fillers. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on a lot of motors. On others, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. A driver who has to stop and think where it goes normally tops up the AdBlue side, from a bottle, and much less frequently. The mistake grows in that gap between the two.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place in Glencorse
It's hardly ever carelessness. Three things tend to line up.
Hurry follows from the warning. The car warns you as AdBlue runs low, and a dry tank puts the vehicle into limp mode — so the top-up happens quickly, before work on a drive off Edinburgh Road, or heading home in the car park outside Fisher's Tryst.
Next, your hand reaches for the cap it would have used on the old car — because a hire car, a new vehicle or a company car places the fillers where your last one did not.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, so nothing stops the pour once it has started. Auchendinny or the heart of Glencorse: it takes the same few seconds in both.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
Look at these first, at a forecourt around Glencorse or a drive over in Mauricewood. Seconds, that's all.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". Your diesel cap normally isn't. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- The size. On plenty of motors the AdBlue filler neck is the smaller of the two.
- Look inside your fuel flap: many motors have a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in the boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Collecting a hire or company car, perhaps at the car park outside Newtongrange? Check with the person who drove the vehicle last before you set off, rather than when the light goes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
On the day the light appears — anywhere you are across Midlothian — a routine to follow.
- Not in a rush on the side of Balfour Terrace, not on a slope, not with the motor running: park and switch off first.
- Locate the AdBlue filler, check the cap, and say the word "AdBlue" aloud while unscrewing it. It sounds silly. It does the trick.
- Leave your diesel cap on. If both sit under one flap, check your diesel cap is still closed before you lift the bottle.
- Finish when that tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, pour slowly through the own spout.
- Only then, start the car: close the cap, check once more, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Find at stage two or three that it has already gone into the diesel side? Then stop right there. Leave out step five entirely.
Put AdBlue in the diesel tank in Glencorse already?
Then the order of things is short. Do not start the engine. Don't switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of that tank, where your fuel is pulled from — so don't top up with diesel to dilute it.
Ask the staff to help roll your car clear of the petrol pump if you are at a forecourt — the Tesco, the Asda or anywhere else. Leave it where it is if you are on your own driveway around Glencorse.
If the engine has already run, stop as soon as it is safe then switch off. Leave the M8 — under 10 miles out of Glencorse — at the first exit. A short hop across Glencorse is a smaller job than a run towards Edinburgh, under 10 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
Our arrival around Glencorse, and what happens next
Anywhere the vehicle has stopped, be it outside the local primary school, beside Royal Scots 1633 to 2006 Memorial or on your own drive, our van comes to it. Which fluid went in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since those answers set the work and price. That quote comes over the phone, before any van leaves.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, once that tank is cleared. 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. The filter cleaned or, where needed, swapped; clean diesel in; and then a check of your car. Before we leave, our engineers fire it up and make sure that it's running smoothly.
Most jobs are done in roughly half an hour after we get there, provided the motor has not run — and the pumps our technicians use are fine on a live forecourt and quiet at night outside a house. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Wrong-fuel cover is part of many insurance policies — so use the wait to look at yours.
About Glencorse and where it is
Glencorse is a suburban area situated on the riverside in Midlothian, with a mix of semi-detached housing and other residential properties. Glencorse sits at an elevation of 172 metres, close to the nearby settlements of Auchendinny and Beeslack. Glencorse is located near the larger town of Milton Bridge and is approximately 7.5 miles from Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. Glencorse has a population of around 1904 residents.
Glencorse and Midlothian: AdBlue drains across the area
Throughout EH postcodes, our vans covering Glencorse — a residential suburb — work the nearby places too, Milton Bridge and Beeslack included. Quote a postcode beginning EH26 0, and our van gets there fastest.
The car doesn't need to shift. Our technicians drain it where it is — a side street near War Memorial Lodge, a lay-by on the way to Glencorse Golf Club, a drive. Ring and ask instead of assuming if you are close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Sophia Inglis Memorial.
Glencorse drivers: the short version
Tip nothing till you have read the cap. AdBlue in the diesel tank regardless? Leave the car off then phone 0333 366 0103; Petrol in Diesel drains it where it stands, across Midlothian.