AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pilrig: Why It Occurs and How to Prevent It
If AdBlue is already in your diesel tank, stop reading for a moment: leave your motor and your ignition off then call 0333 366 0103. Normally, when the motor hasn't run, it's drained and fully purged where the car sits in Pilrig. If you are reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it takes place and how to make sure it doesn't.
AdBlue in a diesel vehicle: two tanks, two fillers
Diesel goes to the engine — but many current diesels driven around Pilrig and Leith carry a second fluid too. Stored in a tank of its own, AdBlue is fed into your exhaust gas and cleans it.
Each tank comes with one filler of its own. Many of motors share a single flap for both, while some move the AdBlue filler to your boot or under the bonnet. The diesel side is topped up at the pump all the time. Far less regularly, the AdBlue side gets filled — normally from a bottle, by someone thinking about where it goes. That gap is where the mistake lives.
How AdBlue in your diesel tank occurs around Pilrig
Carelessness seldom explains it. Instead is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the car tells you, and if it runs out completely, the vehicle drops into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a drive off Rosslyn Crescent before work, or in the car park outside The Harp & Castle on the way home.
New-to-you vehicles are second, as well. Hire cars, new vehicles and company vehicles place their fillers in new places, and the hand reaches for the cap it used on the old one.
No part halts the tip once it has started, because 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 Pilrig or out in Bonnington.
Which filler is for AdBlue, and which for diesel?
Before you pour anything, whether on a drive in Greenside or a forecourt in Pilrig, check these. They take a few seconds.
- Colour and lettering: an AdBlue cap is frequently blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap usually doesn't. Trust the cap, not its position.
- Check the size: the smaller filler neck is, on plenty of motors, the AdBlue one.
- A label inside your fuel flap often says which fuel goes where, on many motors. Look for it.
- In your boot or under the bonnet: that's where your filler sits if it's not by the diesel cap, and the handbook says which.
- The person who drove the car last. On a hire or company car collected from somewhere like the car park outside Edinburgh Waverley, ask before you leave, not when the light comes on.
Topping up AdBlue without it reaching the diesel tank
Anywhere in City of Edinburgh the light comes on, this is a routine for that day.
- Not in a rush on the side of Rosslyn Terrace, not on a slope, not with your motor running: park and switch off first.
- Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew the cap, after you find the AdBlue filler and reading it. Silly, perhaps, yet it works.
- The diesel cap stays on. When the two share a flap, make sure it's closed before lifting the bottle.
- Stop when the tank fills or the bottle is empty; until then, pour slowly using its built-in spout.
- Only then, start the vehicle: close the cap, check again, and make sure your diesel cap was never opened.
Stop there if you find, at stage two or three, that you've already poured into your diesel side. Leave out step five altogether.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Pilrig?
Don't start the motor: that's how the short order of things begins. Do not switch your ignition on; on plenty of diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Do not top up with diesel to thin it: AdBlue doesn't mix with diesel, it sinks to the bottom of the tank, where the fuel is drawn from.
At a forecourt — BP, another forecourt nearby or any other — the staff will usually help push the vehicle clear, if you ask. If you are on your own driveway around Pilrig, leave the car where it stands.
Already started? Stop when it's sensible, then turn off. Pilrig lies under 10 miles from the M8; on it, use the next junction. About how far did it go? Crossing Pilrig is smaller work than a trip of under 3 miles towards Edinburgh, so tell us.
What happens when our technicians arrive in Pilrig
The van reaches the car anywhere it has come to rest — your own driveway, near Pilrig Park Mural, or outside the local primary school. Which liquid got in, the amount, and if it ran: our technicians ask since the replies decide both work and quote. You hear that quote on the phone, before anybody sets off.
After that: a drain, then a full flush of the whole system. AdBlue crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it doesn't wash out on its own — which is why that matters more here than with petrol. Once the fuel filter has been flushed — or replaced, if needed — fresh diesel goes in, and finally the car gets tested. The engine is fired up next and checked to be sure it runs properly, all before our engineers leave.
If your engine hasn't run, the majority of jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. You pay on the day, with nothing upfront, and get a VAT invoice and an engineer report for your insurer. Misfuelling cover is included in plenty of insurance policies — and so use the wait to look at yours.
About Pilrig itself
Pilrig is a suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 1 mile from Edinburgh city centre. Pilrig occupies a coastal location, with an elevation of around 17 metres, and is characterised by predominantly flat-type housing. Pilrig is close to nearby places such as Bonnington, Broughton, and Hillside, and is home to a population of around 17,738 people.
Pilrig and City of Edinburgh: AdBlue drains across the area
Pilrig is a residential suburb, and our teams that cover it also work the places near it, Broughton and Hillside among them, across the EH postcode area. Quote a postcode beginning EH6 5, and the van gets there quickest.
The vehicle does not need to move. Wherever it stands — near CWGC Cross of Sacrifice, in a lay-by heading to Pilrig Park Community Woodland, on a drive — that is where it gets drained. If you are close to a boundary, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Edinburgh Free Church Continuing, ring and ask rather than assuming.
In short, for Pilrig drivers
First, the cap; then, the pour. Still AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel will drain it where it stands, wherever in City of Edinburgh: switch it off then call 0333 366 0103.