Adblue - How far are you getting?

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Tio64

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Adblue - what a major pain in the backside this stuff is. We took delivery of a brand new moho last November and it's the first vehicle I've had which is equipped with an adblue system.

So far we're only getting @ 1500 miles between the adblue light coming on. Our Fiat Ducato base has no gauge, just a light. The price of adblue seems to have doubled in recent days, I've just paid £20 for 10 litres, I can't find any of those £1 a litre deals.
A local garage has adblue pumps, £1.79 a litre, but the diesel there is not cheap, so do I drive from one fuel station to another? :)

Another absolute PITA is the addition of an adblue tank to the vehicle has reduced diesel capacity to 60 litres, meaning a fuel range of under 250 miles, a pita on long journeys.

Talking to friends who have cars with adblue, they're saying the never have to top it up. One handbook I've seen says the adblue is topped up at the annual service. Why am I having to top up on journeys?

What's your experience folks, how many miles are you doing between adblue top ups?

Mike
 
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Tio64 said:
I don't think actual emissions are tested on diesels, only smoke, and I doubt any of our vehicles produces anything meaningful in that regard.
Click to expand...
Not the case actually

"The MOT emissions test inspects the amount of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide that are released. It has been found that in older diesel cars, result in higher levels of diesel emissions"

You can also fail for visible smoke and any warning lights on the dash.

www.national.co.uk

Reduce diesel emissions before an MOT check | National

A part of your MOT, your diesel vehicle can be failed if your exhaust emissions are too high. Find out how to reduce these emissions with National.
www.national.co.uk www.national.co.uk
 
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VXman said:
Not the case actually

"The MOT emissions test inspects the amount of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide that are released. It has been found that in older diesel cars, result in higher levels of diesel emissions"

You can also fail for visible smoke and any warning lights on the dash.

www.national.co.uk

Reduce diesel emissions before an MOT check | National

A part of your MOT, your diesel vehicle can be failed if your exhaust emissions are too high. Find out how to reduce these emissions with National.
www.national.co.uk www.national.co.uk
Click to expand...
Honestly, I think that's sales blurb. Diesels don't produce any meaningful carbon monoxide, certainly you can't use them to commit suicide whereas uncatalysed petrols are very 'good' for that. I'm pretty certain the emissions test can't detect whether a dpf filter has been removed. I'll pay attention next time my old xtrail is tested, but I'm pretty certain that so long as smoke is not being produced, and the engine does not have major faults such as burning engine oil, then I think that's pretty much it.
 
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VXman said:
Not the case actually

"The MOT emissions test inspects the amount of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide that are released. It has been found that in older diesel cars, result in higher levels of diesel emissions"

You can also fail for visible smoke and any warning lights on the dash.

www.national.co.uk

Reduce diesel emissions before an MOT check | National

A part of your MOT, your diesel vehicle can be failed if your exhaust emissions are too high. Find out how to reduce these emissions with National.
www.national.co.uk www.national.co.uk
Click to expand...
Also, and admittedly I'd like to know more, but I think the adblue system works only at higher exhaust temperature (not to be confused with engine coolant temperature) which is unlikely to be achieved on an mot test. Some info here
Also, despite some scare stories, only a little over 3% of diesels are failing emissions test according to https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/fl...s-fail-mot-in-record-numbers-due-to-emissions
 
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Tio64 said:
Honestly, I think that's sales blurb. Diesels don't produce any meaningful carbon monoxide, certainly you can't use them to commit suicide whereas uncatalysed petrols are very 'good' for that. I'm pretty certain the emissions test can't detect whether a dpf filter has been removed. I'll pay attention next time my old xtrail is tested, but I'm pretty certain that so long as smoke is not being produced, and the engine does not have major faults such as burning engine oil, then I think that's pretty much it.
Click to expand...

Of course there are specific emissions levels. It's not a case of the MOT tester sticking his finger in the air and making a guess. Just like petrol the exhaust gases are measured by a probe in the exhaust and a machine.

There's loads of info on .gov.uk website and others. The link I shared just seemed to be communicated in the simplest manner

From another source if you want to get more technical.

Vehicle first usedTypeLimit
Before July 2008Non-turboPlate value if present, or 2.5m-1 if lower
TurboPlate value if present, or 3.0m-1 if lower
On or after 1 July 2008All dieselsPlate value if present, or 1.5m-1
On or after 1 January 2014All dieselsPlate value if present, or 0.7m-1

Also to answer my own question it also states Adblue systems have to be checked and be working.

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Spriddler said:
New vehicles don't always come with a full AdBlue tank (penny pinching).
Click to expand...
Actually, that can be helpful. As newbies to MHs, we had never heard of AdBlue until we got warnings coming on when we test drove our newly new 2021 model (I should say here that my last 2 road cars were both diesel - the current also being Euro 6 without any hint of this stuff). Helpful because the salesman could explain what was wrong, and indeed confirm that the manufacturers only put a little in (in this case the vehicle had only done 425 miles in its previous life). Insisted the tank was filled as part of the purchase, and was told to expect around 2-3,000 miles from a full tank.
 
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Yes has the electronic dash

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craigandemma said:
Yeah seems okay the Speedo..just the fuel gauge goes down too quickly 😂
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It gets better - or, ours has done anyway. Picked our new moho up last November, '21 Adria, though I suspect the Ducato base might have been built in 2020 :unsure:, anyway, ours is 2.3 160bhp auto, was reading mpg in solid 24's,and stayed at at that for a couple of thousand miles but then has got much better. Our van now has 5,000 miles on it, the mpg figure got better, into the 29's (mpg), last time I filled up the gauge was reading 31mpg and on my last run I got 33mpg which obviously is much, much better. I've never bothered to verify these figures by checking them myself (distance between fill-ups) but I am aware that the fuel range has got much better.

Interesting that yours has got an adblue gauge, I'm really annoyed that ours hasn't. If you could report in on your adblue usage that would be great, because maybe the last of the previous generation Ducatos has an issue with adblue consumption?

Looks like your new van has got an 'econometer' too, which I think would be very useful. I often have cause to think that diesels are more economical when running at about 2,000rpm, and the ECO driving mode in our Ducato auto often does run in 8th gear instead of 9th, giving higher rpm. An accurate 'economy meter' might help me decide if I'm right or wrong on this. :)
 
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Tio64 said:
It gets better - or, ours has done anyway. Picked our new moho up last November, '21 Adria, though I suspect the Ducato base might have been built in 2020 :unsure:, anyway, ours is 2.3 160bhp auto, was reading mpg in solid 24's,and stayed at at that for a couple of thousand miles but then has got much better. Our van now has 5,000 miles on it, the mpg figure got better, into the 29's (mpg), last time I filled up the gauge was reading 31mpg and on my last run I got 33mpg which obviously is much, much better. I've never bothered to verify these figures by checking them myself (distance between fill-ups) but I am aware that the fuel range has got much better.

Interesting that yours has got an adblue gauge, I'm really annoyed that ours hasn't. If you could report in on your adblue usage that would be great, because maybe the last of the previous generation Ducatos has an issue with adblue consumption?

Looks like your new van has got an 'econometer' too, which I think would be very useful. I often have cause to think that diesels are more economical when running at about 2,000rpm, and the ECO driving mode in our Ducato auto often does run in 8th gear instead of 9th, giving higher rpm. An accurate 'economy meter' might help me decide if I'm right or wrong on this. :)
Click to expand...
Sounds better than mine. I seem to get 26-27 on average. I did manage 31 once but that was doing a steady 50mpg. Mixed driving and motorway speeds bring it right down. This is for a 140bhp manual gearbox so should be better than yours. What weight are you - mines up to 4250KG and I think we are generally loaded to 3900KG as I carry a motorbike as well as pushbikes and all the usual paranfanila. We don't travel light!
 
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VXman said:
Sounds better than mine. I seem to get 26-27 on average. I did manage 31 once but that was doing a steady 50mpg. Mixed driving and motorway speeds bring it right down. This is for a 140bhp manual gearbox so should be better than yours. What weight are you - mines up to 4250KG and I think we are generally loaded to 3900KG as I carry a motorbike as well as pushbikes and all the usual paranfanila. We don't travel light!
Click to expand...
We're at 3500kg limit though I haven't weighed it yet. We carry two e-bikes in the garage (25kg each) but no motorbikes. 🙂

Though the latest figures were without bikes.
I am driving more conservatively nowadays, (though still 60mph on m'ways), I've decided we need to give less money to despots. 🙂
 
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Tio64 said:
We're at 3500kg limit though I haven't weighed it yet. We carry two e-bikes in the garage (25kg each) but no motorbikes. 🙂

Though the latest figures were without bikes.
I am driving more conservatively nowadays, (though still 60mph on m'ways), I've decided we need to give less money to despots. 🙂
Click to expand...
Tio64 said:
It gets better - or, ours has done anyway. Picked our new moho up last November, '21 Adria, though I suspect the Ducato base might have been built in 2020 :unsure:, anyway, ours is 2.3 160bhp auto, was reading mpg in solid 24's,and stayed at at that for a couple of thousand miles but then has got much better. Our van now has 5,000 miles on it, the mpg figure got better, into the 29's (mpg), last time I filled up the gauge was reading 31mpg and on my last run I got 33mpg which obviously is much, much better. I've never bothered to verify these figures by checking them myself (distance between fill-ups) but I am aware that the fuel range has got much better.

Interesting that yours has got an adblue gauge, I'm really annoyed that ours hasn't. If you could report in on your adblue usage that would be great, because maybe the last of the previous generation Ducatos has an issue with adblue consumption?

Looks like your new van has got an 'econometer' too, which I think would be very useful. I often have cause to think that diesels are more economical when running at about 2,000rpm, and the ECO driving mode in our Ducato auto often does run in 8th gear instead of 9th, giving higher rpm. An accurate 'economy meter' might help me decide if I'm right or wrong on this. :)
Click to expand...
ours is 140bhp manual and so far after this weekend have done 1400 miles and average at 25mpg. Also probs at the 3500kg weight guesstimate ..not the worst I guess but hopefully improves with time. On the next run I will check with the economy meter and the eco driving mode as have not really used that.

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Tio64 said:
Adblue - what a major pain in the backside this stuff is. We took delivery of a brand new moho last November and it's the first vehicle I've had which is equipped with an adblue system.

So far we're only getting @ 1500 miles between the adblue light coming on. Our Fiat Ducato base has no gauge, just a light. The price of adblue seems to have doubled in recent days, I've just paid £20 for 10 litres, I can't find any of those £1 a litre deals.
A local garage has adblue pumps, £1.79 a litre, but the diesel there is not cheap, so do I drive from one fuel station to another? :)

Another absolute PITA is the addition of an adblue tank to the vehicle has reduced diesel capacity to 60 litres, meaning a fuel range of under 250 miles, a pita on long journeys.

Talking to friends who have cars with adblue, they're saying the never have to top it up. One handbook I've seen says the adblue is topped up at the annual service. Why am I having to top up on journeys?

What's your experience folks, how many miles are you doing between adblue top ups?

Mike
Click to expand...
My 2 year old Bürstner 2.3 140 Fiat has covered 8000 miles, mostly up & down the A1 at a steady 60 - 65mph. I consistently get 200 miles per litre of Ad-blue. When the dashboard light comes on I add 2 litres of ad blue that I carry in a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) drinking water bottle. I refill the PET bottle from the 10 litre High Density Polyethylene Bottle (HDPE) that I keep in the garage. HDPE is quite a good moisture barrier and PET much less so. (See: https://www.drugplastics.com/resource-hub/information-sheets/comparison-bottle-polymer-materials/ ). As water evaporates through the plastic so the concentration of urea rises.



The specified concentration of Ad blue is 32.5%, and the maximum concentration of urea in water is ca.1kg in 1 litre. My question is how critical is the specified 32.5%? If I weigh the evaporation loss, should I top up my PET bottle with de-ionised water? Then I ask what is the effect if I dilute the concentration to, say, 30%, or 25%.



Any answers?
 
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My 2 year old Bürstner 2.3 140 Fiat has covered 8000 miles, mostly up & down the A1 at a steady 60 - 65mph. I consistently get 200 miles per litre of Ad-blue. When the dashboard light comes on I add 2 litres of ad blue that I carry in a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) drinking water bottle. I refill the PET bottle from the 10 litre High Density Polyethylene Bottle (HDPE) that I keep in the garage. HDPE is quite a good moisture barrier and PET much less so. (See: https://www.drugplastics.com/resource-hub/information-sheets/comparison-bottle-polymer-materials/ ). As water evaporates through the plastic so the concentration of urea rises.



The specified concentration of Ad blue is 32.5%, and the maximum concentration of urea in water is ca.1kg in 1 litre. My question is how critical is the specified 32.5%? If I weigh the evaporation loss, should I top up my PET bottle with de-ionised water? Then I ask what is the effect if I dilute the concentration to, say, 30%, or 25%.



Any answers?
 
Upvote 0
Illbeburgered said:
My 2 year old Bürstner 2.3 140 Fiat has covered 8000 miles, mostly up & down the A1 at a steady 60 - 65mph. I consistently get 200 miles per litre of Ad-blue. When the dashboard light comes on I add 2 litres of ad blue that I carry in a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) drinking water bottle. I refill the PET bottle from the 10 litre High Density Polyethylene Bottle (HDPE) that I keep in the garage. HDPE is quite a good moisture barrier and PET much less so. (See: https://www.drugplastics.com/resource-hub/information-sheets/comparison-bottle-polymer-materials/ ). As water evaporates through the plastic so the concentration of urea rises.



The specified concentration of Ad blue is 32.5%, and the maximum concentration of urea in water is ca.1kg in 1 litre. My question is how critical is the specified 32.5%? If I weigh the evaporation loss, should I top up my PET bottle with de-ionised water? Then I ask what is the effect if I dilute the concentration to, say, 30%, or 25%.



Any answers?
Click to expand...
Ok will try and answer this.

The first part of the post is probably that the degree of evaporation over the time you have it in the bottle will be so little that the overall increase in urea concentration will be insignificant. It may be if analysing in a laboratory but in relation to the accuracy of equipment in a vehicle, which will be more rough and ready, it won’t be.

The second part will depend on how the quality of the adblue is measured in a vehicle. It could be by in-line density coupled to a flow meter. A correalous (forgive the spelling) type meter. However given the cost of them it is likely to only be accurate and therefore calibrated be to one maybe two decimal points at the most. In which case a few percent variation from 32.5% is unlikely to effect the system.

Alternatively they may use refractive index measurement but I suspect the accuracy and therefore result would be similar.
 
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KD said:
As a matter of interest, roughly how much do you need to add each time?
Click to expand...
Sorry don't know as there is no meter on the hose and not sure how fast it flows in.

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i worked for a company that had 360 Merc vans with ad blue,,never have I heard of it being topped up after 1500 miles,,these van would do that in a week,
 
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just a bit of info

I filled the adblue tank to the brim on my new Rapido i1090 9sp auto at i’d say approx 200 miles, I had the warning light on this morning at 1430 miles driving 800 ish miles carefully in cruise at 60 mph motorway and the rest tootling around the country lanes.

I bought 5 ltrs and it went straight in and probably could have got more in, infact definitely could.

i hope it gets better or is that wishful thinking

cheers

Al
 
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Al n Val said:
just a bit of info

I filled the adblue tank to the brim on my new Rapido i1090 9sp auto at i’d say approx 200 miles, I had the warning light on this morning at 1430 miles driving 800 ish miles carefully in cruise at 60 mph motorway and the rest tootling around the country lanes.

I bought 5 ltrs and it went straight in and probably could have got more in, infact definitely could.

i hope it gets better or is that wishful thinking

cheers

Al
Click to expand...
Unfortunately we have had the same. It seems to vary when the light comes on but we use a lot. The last time was after 800 miles but it only took 6.5 litres whereas sometimes it comes on later and takes up to 9.5 litres.

According to Fiat we are bang on the middle range of expected use!! 😱😱😱😱
 
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Stacetop said:
Unfortunately we have had the same. It seems to vary when the light comes on but we use a lot. The last time was after 800 miles but it only took 6.5 litres whereas sometimes it comes on later and takes up to 9.5 litres.

According to Fiat we are bang on the middle range of expected use!! 😱😱😱😱
Click to expand...
Chap next pitch to us now with a Peugeot based Bailey has done over 3000 miles and no warning, it seems to me Fiat are heavy on adblue compared with other makes.

That said my Comanche averaged 22.8mpg and up to now this Rapido is returning 24.8 mpg so i’d best not complain, at 60mph the Comanche did 1950rpm, the Rapido sits at 1500rpm doing 60mph so i’m happy and putting it down to the new gearbox 👍

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Stacetop said:
Unfortunately we have had the same. It seems to vary when the light comes on but we use a lot. The last time was after 800 miles but it only took 6.5 litres whereas sometimes it comes on later and takes up to 9.5 litres.

According to Fiat we are bang on the middle range of expected use!! 😱😱😱😱
Click to expand...

I thought the Fiat tanks were 19 litres? Or are there different sizes for different models? 🤷‍♂️

When my light came on (by then it was too late!), I put in 14 litres and still needed to be piggy backed to our local Fiat garage for the system to be reset.

Yep, I did follow the correct procedures as per the manual. (y)
 
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