AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Gorgie: How It Happens and How to Prevent It
AdBlue already in your diesel tank? In that case set this page down for now, leave the ignition and engine off, then phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, done right where your car stands around Gorgie, is usually all it takes when found before your motor runs. If you are reading before it has happened, the rest of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
Why does AdBlue in a diesel vehicle need its own filler?
Diesel feeds your engine — but many modern diesels driven round Gorgie and Merchiston hold another liquid as well. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
Each tank comes with a filler of its own. Plenty of motors have a single flap for the two, while some put the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. Diesel goes in at every filling station call-out, week in, week out. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by a person thinking about where it goes. The error lives in that gap.
How does AdBlue in the diesel tank occur around Gorgie?
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is seldom one of them.
To start with, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a message from your car, and letting it run dry means limp mode — so a rushed top-up, maybe before work off Sinclair Place, perhaps at Brass Monkey Gorgie on the way home after work.
Then the vehicle is new. A hire car, a new car or a company car puts the fillers where your last one did not, and the hand hits for the cap it would have used on the old one.
Nothing halts the tip once it has started, since a bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as readily as an AdBlue one. The bottle fits. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Gorgie or out in North Merchiston.
Telling the AdBlue filler from the diesel filler
A couple of seconds is all the checks take — so run through them before you pour anything, on a drive in Saughtonhall or a forecourt around Gorgie.
- The cap. The AdBlue cap is often blue, or marked "AdBlue". The diesel cap normally is not. Read it rather than going by where it sits.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller filler of the two.
- Open the filler flap and look for a label — plenty of cars mark which goes in each filler just there.
- The handbook says which it is when the filler is not next to your diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Ask when you pick up a rental or fleet car — from Slateford's car park, say — not once the warning appears.
How to top up without AdBlue in the diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever around City of Edinburgh that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with the engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Handyside Place.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and read it. Daft, yes, yet it does the trick.
- The two behind one flap? Then confirm the cap on your diesel side stays closed ahead of raising the bottle.
- Finish when your tank fills or the bottle is empty; before that, tip gently using its built-in spout.
- Close the cap and check once more. Make sure your diesel cap was never opened. Only then start the car.
Find at stage two or three that it's already gone into the diesel side? So stop just there. Don't go on to stage five.
Gorgie: already put AdBlue in the diesel tank?
The short order of things, beginning with no starting your motor. On plenty of diesels your ignition alone runs the fuel pump, and so do not switch the vehicle on. AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel — it sinks to the bottom of your tank, where the fuel is sucked from — so don't top up with diesel to thin it.
At a forecourt — Sainsbury's, BP or another — the staff will normally help roll the car clear, when you ask. On your own drive around Gorgie? So the vehicle stays where it is.
Stop as soon as it is safe then switch off, if your motor has already run. On the M8, under 5 miles from Gorgie, that means the next junction. Tell us roughly how far it went: a run towards Edinburgh, under 3 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Gorgie.
Gorgie: what takes place when we arrive
Our technicians come to your car wherever it has stopped, whether that is outside the local primary school, near Gorgie War Memorial Hall or on your own drive. Those answers settle the work and the price, and so our technicians ask what went in, roughly how much, and whether it's run. You get that quote on the phone, before anyone heads out.
Emptying that tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. More than with petrol, it counts here: the crystals form, certain metals corrode, and none of it washes away on its own, however long it sits. The filter is cleaned, or replaced where it needs to be; fresh diesel goes in; and the vehicle is tested. We don't go until it has been started and is running correctly.
Using pumps fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night, most jobs in which the engine has not run take roughly half an hour after our technicians arrive. Payment is on the day, not upfront, and you are given the paperwork an insurer wants: an engineer report and a VAT invoice. It is worth checking your policy while we travel to you: misfuelling cover comes with plenty of policies.
About Gorgie
Gorgie is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 2.2 miles west of Edinburgh's city centre. Gorgie lies near the Water of Leith, in a coastal setting, with the area's elevation at around 51 metres. Gorgie is characterised by its predominantly flat-type housing and is close to nearby places such as North Merchiston, Roseburn, and Dalry.
AdBlue drains about Gorgie, and City of Edinburgh beyond
Gorgie is a residential suburb, and the teams that cover it also work the places near it, Roseburn and Dalry among them, across the EH postcode area. A postcode starting EH11 1 gets the van to you fastest.
Your car doesn't need to shift. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Westfield Park, a side street close to Slateford Green Community Center: our technicians drain it where it is. Awkward to pin down, like the back of Gorgie Mission? By a county line? Checking is better than assuming, so phone.
In short, for Gorgie motorists
Read the cap before you tip. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in City of Edinburgh, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.