O/T: AdBlue help please

I've recently acquired a van that takes AdBlue and the refill warning light has now come on. It's got a 21 litre tank, apparently. Do I have to fill it right up every time or is it OK to just buy a 10 litre bottle and pour it in? I know that will fit but 2 bottles probably won't quite and I don't really want to cart the stuff around or store it so I'd rather top it up more frequently if that doesn't cause any problems.

TIA

 

Just put what you want in whenever. We had a Q7 and had a big tank in the office yard to fill it up but whenever we were at home and off we just put a bit in to keep us going before getting back to office

 

Thanks @kez. I guessed that was probably the case but it's not explicit on the sites I was reading so it's reassuring to know I'll not be doing anything wrong.

 

yep as above put what ever amount of Ad Blue in to the tank

 

Not wanting to sound like a silly old bugger(which sometimes I am) what are you talking about just being nosey.

 

Just keep gauge out of red

 

We just buy 5 litres at a time. Some of our vehicle's seem to run at lot longer than others before they need to be topped up.

 

Ad Blue is blended from urea (32%) and de-ionised water (68%) and is a diesel exhaust fluid.
Conforming to ISO 22242, in simple terms, it limits the emission of NOx ( nitrous oxide)
before the exhaust fumes enter the atmosphere. Spotted recently that a garage next to
Ossett Towns ground, have a freestanding booth where you can top up your tank as and
when required which saves having to stock it. We used to supply thousands of litres of it on a national
contract for the various Council fleets.

 

I surmise this is just for new diesel cars then and thanks for the reply DR.

 

was told at work when i took a minibus out that i had to fill up with Adblue every 3 tanks of diesel. ended up getting a different minibus so didnt end up testing this!

 

Don't buy your Adblue in a container, it's far cheaper to get it at the pumps and the pump will knock off when you're full. Most Shell garages have an Adblue pump, although sometimes it's with the lorry pumps.

 

Yeah far easier at the petrol station on pump. Nearly all motorway service stations have it on pump. Quicker and easier and also you can do a full tank

 

Thanks for the advice, all (and sorry @Sparkfield red for not replying to your question earlier - I was afk). I'm a bit nervous of using the ones at the service stations first time out but I'll probably suss that out later. As it's only a tenner for 10 litres of Redex AdBlue from just down the road at Screwfix I was just going to give that a try this time but I'll have a look at prices and availability at the service stations on my way back down south in a few weeks.

 

When I bought it first SR , it was for the new Euro 3 compliant HGV's ( the acceptable level of exhaust emissions).
From memory, that would have been around 2001/2002. At that stage to the best of my knowledge, diesel powered cars were not involved.

 

Just shows you how costs have risen. In 2000, in bulk, we were paying 28 pence per litre.
That was the delivered price to all major Council transport depots in the region.

 

I’d advise to buy the big 10l online, most places rip you off I buy 300l at a time and just store them, depending on how many miles you do it can need topping up quite regular so worth stocking up

 

I have just got rid of my diesel and gone electric, but I had my diesel 3008 for 48k miles and I can only recall topping up 3 times with 10l a time in those 48k miles. So, assuming it came with a full tank, it was probably doing a shade over 10k miles per 10l. So 300 litres would have lasted me 1/3 million miles.

 

The Transit is supposed to do about 6000 miles on a 21 litre tank and I do about 12-15k miles per year so I'm not anticipating having to top it up more than 4 or 5 times a year, less if I master the scary service station pumps (I'm such a wuss).

 

You should try mastering the public rapid charging network. It's a whole new world!. When I used one first time, there were a bunch of people watching me and I had to pretend I knew what I was doing

 

It's dead easy, stick the nozzle in and squeeze. Just like putting diesel in. And if you're a proper Yorkshireman the savings you'll make should convince you.