--- title: Don't Start It: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank Pinkie canonical: https://www.petrolinadieselcar.co.uk/adblue-in-diesel/pinkie-east-lothian/ location: Pinkie county: East Lothian latitude: 55.941260 longitude: -3.036650 service: AdBlue in a Diesel Tank updated: 2026-10-28 --- # AdBlue in the Diesel Tank in Pinkie? Keep It Switched Off With AdBlue in your diesel tank, your ignition stays off and so does the motor. Water with urea mixed in it: that is AdBlue. Not like fuel, it neither burns nor mixes, and nothing starts till the engine sucks it round. A drain and a thorough flush, done where your car is around Pinkie, is normally what AdBlue in a diesel tank needs — if it's caught before the engine has run. Ring 0333 366 0103 before you do anything else. ## Those opening minutes: AdBlue in the diesel tank around Pinkie Do: - So nobody can switch your ignition on, take the keys away. - Put the hazard lights on if you are anywhere near moving traffic. - Which product, and roughly what quantity? Save the bottle or the receipt, and we can see. - Ring just where you are. Quote a EH21 7 postcode or the nearest street name, and nobody has to search for you. Do not: - Do not start your motor, even for a moment to shift your car. - Many diesels power their pump the instant the ignition goes on, and so leave the vehicle off. - AdBlue does not mix in diesel — it separates out — so adding extra fuel won't thin it. - Do not drive the vehicle anywhere, not even a short stretch along Edenhall Road. - No emptying it yourself, at all, on the roadside. Rolling the car away from the island is a job for attendants to help with, wherever Pinkie forecourt you are on, the Tesco included. On that drive, your car remains exactly as it was left. ## What AdBlue does in a diesel tank AdBlue is made for the exhaust, not your motor. It goes into its own tank and is sprayed into your exhaust gas to fresh it. Nothing in it is supposed to pass through a fuel pump, and nothing in a fuel pump is made to handle it. Fuel blends; AdBlue, after tipped in, won't. Its behaviour is nothing like diesel's. It drops, since it is heavier than diesel, and settles down where the pickup takes its supply from. A motor topped up on a drive in Inveresk overnight and not started since counts as the straightforward case. No pump has pulled the AdBlue up yet — but once the motor runs, that's what goes first, directly from the bottom of your tank. From there it causes two kinds of damage. As its water goes, the urea left behind crystallises, and the crystals block filters and settle in fine passages. And it is corrosive to some of the metals a fuel system is made from, and so it keeps working on the parts it gets to for as long as it stays there. Pipes holding AdBlue mean damage overnight for a vehicle sitting around Pinkie. Only inside the tank, it stays the same. And there's the water: it brings no lubrication to the components that need it most — the injection pump and every injector. ## AdBlue in a diesel: why it is frequently worse than petrol A problem of thinned fuel is what you get from fuelling a diesel with petrol from the Shell. It mixes with the diesel, and whilst it is inside that tank it causes no damage; the damage comes from running your motor on it. With AdBlue in a diesel, the fluid as such is simply the wrong one. Not burning, it can't simply be run through. Deposits and corrosion stay after the following tankful, and AdBlue splits again from the diesel, and so thinning it can't help. Hence the flush matters so much, and trying your engine "to see" does more harm here than almost any other slip — in Pinkie Braes or the centre of Pinkie alike. The same good news applies as with petrol. Clearing a tank is the easiest job on a fuel system, and with no start-up, the AdBlue stays in it — anywhere across East Lothian the car sits. ## How AdBlue ends up in a diesel tank in Pinkie No one means to do it. The AdBlue filler on plenty of cars waits right next to the diesel filler, occasionally under the same flap, and the two caps can look alike in poor light. Most of the time it takes place with a bottle bought on the way home and poured in on the drive, not at the pump. Usually, it happens in one of a couple of familiar ways. The top-up is hurried outside the local primary school, because your dash flashed with a warning while the children were dropped off. A driver tips the bottle in at home, just off Pinkie Road, as the day ends. Or a driver new to that flap tops up your car after dark, stopped in the car park by The Horseshoe Inn. Rented vehicles, brand-new vehicles, fleet vehicles, or the second car in a family with one of each: the least familiar vehicles see it most. Same slip, same first response — leave it off — wherever you happen to be in Pinkie or the rest of East Lothian. ## Already started the motor with AdBlue in the diesel tank around Pinkie? Then your tank is no longer where the AdBlue is. The filter and pipework have had it sucked through, and any running time takes it on to the injection pump and every injector. Expect lumpy running, exhaust smoke, falling power, warnings on your dash, or a cut-out — returning from Pinkie Playing Fields, perhaps, or midway across Pinkie. When safe, pull over and turn everything off — with no restarting to test. With each start, more of that is pulled through. If you were on the M8, under 15 miles from Pinkie, come off at the next exit and stop somewhere sensible instead of pressing on. Mileage counts: every mile pushes the AdBlue further in, and so driving for Edinburgh, under 10 miles away, gives a far larger job than hopping across Pinkie to the car park by Duke of Somerset Camp memorial. Approximately how far had it come? Tell us. Wherever the car came to a halt is where all of it gets done, even with more to clean out once the engine has been started. Caught early, it very seldom leaves long-term damage. ## Emptying AdBlue in a diesel in Pinkie: what it takes Our technicians come to the vehicle, wherever it has stopped around Pinkie: a side street near St Peter's Episcopal Church, a drive, a lay-by or a forecourt. Which fluid was put in, roughly the quantity, plus whether your motor has turned over: our technicians ask before all else, because those shape the work. Right there, the tank is then drained, and both the contaminated diesel and the urea come out at once. What remains from AdBlue will not flush out unaided, so the fuel system gets a careful flush, which counts much more here than with petrol. Fresh diesel goes in once your filter is flushed — or swapped, if it needs to be — and then your car is tested. Not run? Then count on about half an hour on site for most jobs. The pumps are explosion-proof, safe on a working forecourt and quiet enough to use outside a house after dark. Bleeding the fuel system with new diesel comes at the end. Whether it's a parking space by Wallyford or a drive in Pinkie, that is where we start it and you drive off. Before we leave, our engineers confirm it is running properly with fresh diesel in. The entire job is done where the vehicle is, so it never has to go to a garage. Afterwards, you are given the paperwork for the insurer: a VAT invoice plus a report from the engineer. ## About Pinkie Pinkie is a coastal suburban area in East Lothian, situated near the city of Edinburgh and close to the Firth of Forth. Pinkie has a relatively low elevation of around 6 metres, and its location near the coast has influenced its development. Pinkie is characterized by its predominantly terraced housing and is part of the larger urban area surrounding Edinburgh, with nearby places including Lewisvale and Musselburgh. ## AdBlue drains across Pinkie and East Lothian Lewisvale, Musselburgh and Levenhall are among the towns near Pinkie that the same vans reach, together with most of East Lothian further out, throughout the EH postcode area. Guessing doesn't help by a county line or anywhere tricky to pin down; ring and check. No moving is needed. In Pinkie, a residential suburb, a van that comes to you works: your car is drained where it stands, be it on a driveway, a residential street, a car park or a forecourt. ## Pinkie: what AdBlue in a diesel tank costs to fix Every job differs, so not one fixed price would be fair. Three things move the cost: whether your engine has run and for how long, how much AdBlue was put in, and where the car is. That last one rests on whether our van can get to it safely, and an open drive is easier than a tight gap behind Musselburgh Race Course. With that in mind, each enquiry from Pinkie begins by asking the identical trio — which fluid went in, how much, whether the engine ran — ahead of any figure. When those are known, a range becomes a single fixed figure. The quote is given on the call, before anyone sets off; settling up happens on the day, by card or by phone, and nothing upfront. As the van is on the way, check your insurance: plenty cover misfuelling. ## Alongside your car around Pinkie, still? Then the most helpful thing you can do is nothing to the vehicle. Engine off, keys out, ignition off. Phone 0333 366 0103: AdBlue, roughly how much, and if it ran is all we ask. Petrol in Diesel takes over the remainder across East Lothian, Pinkie too.