Muirton: How Does AdBlue End Up in a Diesel Tank, and How Do You Avoid It?
Leave the motor and ignition off then phone 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait if AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. A drain and a thorough flush, carried out right where the car stands in Muirton, is usually what it needs if found before your engine runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it occurs and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of current diesels on the roads around Muirton and Old Scone carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust stream to clean it.
Separate tanks, separate fillers. Under one flap, next to each other: that's the arrangement on many vehicles. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler sits under the bonnet or in your boot instead. The diesel side is topped up at the petrol pump all the time. Rarely filled, AdBlue normally comes from a bottle, tipped by someone who has to stop and think what filler to use. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
How does AdBlue in your diesel tank occur around Muirton?
Three things tend to come together, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the car goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Uist Place before work, or in the car park at The Maltings on the way home.
The old car's cap is where your hand reaches — yet a rental car, a new vehicle or a company car puts the fillers elsewhere. That's the second factor: an unfamiliar vehicle.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip after it has started. Quarrymill or the heart of Muirton: it takes the same few seconds in both.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Before you tip anything, whether on a drive in Letham or a forecourt in Muirton, check these. They take a couple of seconds.
- Read the cap instead of going by position: AdBlue caps are frequently blue or marked "AdBlue", and diesel caps usually are not.
- Look at the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- Open the flap and look for a label — many motors show what belongs in which inlet right there.
- The handbook. If the filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- The previous driver knows. Check as you collect a hire car or fleet car — from Perth's car park, say — not once the light comes on.
AdBlue top-ups that never reach the diesel tank
Wherever in Perth and Kinross the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Park and switch off. Not on a slope, not with your motor running, and not in a rush on the side of Westray Court.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it does the trick.
- The diesel cap stays on. Where the two sit under a flap, make sure it is closed before lifting the bottle.
- Slowly does it, through the bottle's own spout, until it is full or the bottle runs out.
- Before starting the car, close the cap and check a second time that your diesel cap never came off.
Discover during the second or third stage that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That's where you stop. Step five is out.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, in Muirton?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your motor. Leave the ignition off too, since on plenty of diesels it alone starts your fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, because AdBlue settles to the bottom instead of mixing — and that is where the fuel is drawn from.
Ask the staff to help push the car away from the pump if you're at a forecourt — the BP, the Asda or somewhere else. Your own drive in Muirton is where it stays.
Where the motor has been run already, pull over safely then switch the car off. Leave the M90 — under 3 miles out of Muirton — at the next exit. Distance counts — a short hop across Muirton makes a smaller job than driving under 3 miles to Perth — so say roughly how far it went.
When our engineers arrive around Muirton, what takes place?
Outside the local primary school, near Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses or on your own drive: wherever your car has stopped, our technicians come to it. Which fluid got in, the amount, and whether it ran: we ask since those answers decide both work and quote. No one heads out until you have had the quote by phone.
Draining your tank comes next, followed by a thorough flush of your system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, and so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that counts more here than with petrol. Your filter is flushed, or replaced where it needs to be; clean diesel goes in; and your car is tested. Then our engineers start the engine and confirm it runs correctly before we leave.
Using pumps safe on a busy forecourt and quiet enough for use outside a house at night, most jobs in which your motor has not run need roughly half an hour after our technicians are there. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer go to you for the insurer. Many insurance policies include misfuelling cover, so it is worth checking yours while we are on the way.
About Muirton and where it is
Muirton is a suburban area located on the riverside in Perth and Kinross, sitting at a low elevation of around 7 metres. Muirton is situated close to the city of Perth, approximately 1.5 miles away, and is near other local places such as Quarrymill and North Inch. Muirton has a mix of housing types, with terraced housing being predominant in the area. Muirton is part of the wider Perth urban area, with easy access to the city centre.
AdBlue drains around Muirton, and Perth and Kinross beyond
As a residential suburb, Muirton has the same vans as nearby places — North Inch, Tulloch — right through PH postcodes and the surrounding area beyond. A postcode starting PH1 3 gets our van to you fastest.
The vehicle stays where it is. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to Scone Palace Grounds, a side street close to Lewis Resource Centre: our engineers drain it where it sits. Tricky to pin down, like the back of North Muirton Community Centre? Close to a county line? Checking is better than guessing, and so ring.
Muirton people: the short version
Pour no AdBlue till you have read the cap. Even so AdBlue in your diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it is, wherever around Perth and Kinross: switch the vehicle off and call 0333 366 0103.