AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Pilton: How It Occurs and How to Prevent It
Pause reading a minute when your diesel tank already has AdBlue in it: ignition off, motor off, and phone 0333 366 0103. A drain plus a thorough flush, carried out just where the car stands in Pilton, is normally what it needs when found before your motor runs. If you're reading before it has happened, the remainder of this page is about why it happens and how to make sure it does not.
AdBlue in a diesel motor, and its separate tank
Many modern diesels on the roads round Pilton and Inverleith carry two liquids, not one. Diesel goes to your motor. Kept in a tank of its own, AdBlue is sprayed into your exhaust stream and cleans it.
There is a filler on each tank. Many of vehicles share a single flap for both, whereas some put the AdBlue filler to the boot or under the bonnet. Filling your diesel side at the petrol pump goes on constantly. The AdBlue side is filled far less commonly, usually from a bottle, and usually by a person who has to stop and think where it goes. Mistakes happen in the gap between the two.
Pilton: how AdBlue in your diesel tank takes place
Carelessness rarely explains it. What does is three things lining up together.
The warning comes first. As AdBlue runs low the vehicle tells you, and if it runs out completely, your vehicle goes into limp mode. So the top-up is done in a hurry: on a driveway off Pilton Loan before work, or in the car park at The Anchor Inn on the way home.
The old car's filler is where your hand reaches — yet a hire car, a new motor or a company car puts the fillers somewhere else. That is the second thing: a new motor.
Lastly, the spout fits: diesel filler or AdBlue one, it slides in just as easily, and after the tip begins, no part halts it. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Pilton or out in Wardie.
How to tell the AdBlue filler from the diesel one
A few seconds is all these take — so check them before you pour anything, on a drive in West Pilton or a forecourt in Pilton.
- Colour and marking: an AdBlue cap is regularly blue, or says "AdBlue", where a diesel cap normally doesn't. Go by the cap, not its position.
- Plenty of motors give AdBlue the smaller neck of the two.
- Open the filler flap and check for a label — many motors mark which belongs in which filler right there.
- The handbook says which it lives when the filler is not next to the diesel cap: the boot, or under the bonnet.
- The previous driver will know. Ask when you pick up a hire car or company car — at Haymarket's car park, perhaps — rather than once the light comes on.
Keeping AdBlue out of your diesel tank when you top up
Anywhere in City of Edinburgh the light comes on, here is a routine for the day.
- Pull in on level, engine off, with time in hand — not rushing on the side of Crewe Terrace.
- Daft as it sounds, saying "AdBlue" aloud while you unscrew the cap does the trick — after you have found the filler and read it.
- Both behind one flap? Then make sure the lid on the diesel filler is still shut ahead of raising the bottle.
- Using the bottle's own spout, pour slowly — and stop when it's full or the bottle is empty.
- Before you start your car, shut the cap and check again that your diesel cap was never opened off.
Discover at the second or third step that the bottle went in the wrong filler? That is where you stop. Step five stays off limits.
AdBlue in the diesel tank already, around Pilton?
Then the order of things is short. Don't start your engine. The fuel pump runs on plenty of diesels the moment the ignition goes on — so keep it off. Filling up with diesel won't weaken it: instead, AdBlue drops to the bottom of that tank, right where fuel is drawn from.
The attendants at Morrisons, Shell or another forecourt will usually lend a hand to push the vehicle clear when you ask. Your own drive in Pilton is where it stays.
Stop as soon as it is safe and switch off, if the engine has already run. On the M8, under 5 miles from Pilton, that means the next exit. A short hop across Pilton is a smaller job than a run towards Edinburgh, under 3 miles away, so tell us roughly how far it went.
What occurs when our engineers turn up around Pilton
Our van reaches your car anywhere it has come to rest — your own drive, near 87th Scout Hall, or by the local primary school. What liquid got in, the quantity, and whether it ran: we ask because those answers decide both work and price. On the phone call itself, you hear our quote — ahead of dispatch.
Draining your tank comes next, then a thorough flush of the system. 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 matters more here than with petrol. Filter cleaned or, where needed, swapped; fresh diesel in; and then a test of your vehicle. We do not go until it has been fired up and is running properly.
If the motor has not run, most jobs take about half an hour once we are there, using pumps that are fine on a busy forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house at night. The insurer will ask for the engineer's report and the VAT invoice, and you get both once this job is done. Payment comes on the day, with no deposit. Before we get there, take a look at your policy; plenty carry cover for misfuelling.
About Pilton and where it is
Pilton is a coastal suburban area in the City of Edinburgh, situated approximately 2.2 miles from Edinburgh city centre. Pilton sits at an elevation of around 30 metres, overlooking the Firth of Forth, and is characterised by predominantly flat-type housing. Pilton is close to nearby places such as Wardie, Granton, and Craigleith, and is home to a population of around 10930 people. Pilton forms part of the larger Edinburgh urban area, with the city's amenities and services within easy reach.
AdBlue drains across City of Edinburgh, Pilton included
Pilton is a residential suburb, and our vans that cover it also work the towns around it, Granton and Craigleith among them, across the EH postcode area. Quote a postcode that starts EH5 2, and our van arrives quickest.
There's no need to shift the vehicle. A driveway, a lay-by on the way to East Pilton Park, a side street close to St Margaret and Mary: our engineers drain the car where it stands. Ring and ask instead of guessing if you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to explain, like the back of Seventh-day Adventist Church.
For Pilton drivers, the short version
Always, the cap; then, the tip. Even so AdBlue in the diesel tank? Petrol in Diesel can empty it where it stands, wherever across City of Edinburgh: keep the car off then phone 0333 366 0103.