Van in storage Adblue Regime

[Prop]

Hi All
Currently have a van with a Euro 5 engine and looking to get a brand new van which I guess will have Adblue.

2 Questions.

Q1
We normally do about 8K miles a year consisting of two 60 day Europe trips and the odd week away in the UK, the rest of the time it will be stood on the drive.
I read that Adblue has a shelf life how do people in the same situation as us cope with having the van stood not being used for say 3 months at a time?

Q2
We will be doing a van conversion so we can choose our base van, our preferred option is one of the Stellantis vans, Fiat etc because of the wider conversion footprint. I have read that these vans are prone to Adblue problems does anyone have any knowledge if any of the other usual suspects (Merc, VW etc) fare any better in this respect?

Thanks

Paul

 

[ontheroadagain]

Adblue has a shelf life of at least a year so I wouldn't worry about it sitting for 3 months.
At 8000 miles you will be using a few tanks full per year so it will be getting refreshed quite often.
I don't think Fiat are any worse than Merc, VW etc. (You don't hear of many Fiats having Adblue problems to be honest).

 

[royandsharont]

Our Ducato is now 18 months old and your travel plans are very similar to ours, you perhaps spend a little less time touring in the U.K. We have experienced no problems with the AdBlue at all generally topping it up when the first warning comes on, or just GeForce a new trip abroad, which has been around 3k miles.

Id prefer to fill abroad as it’s lots cheaper and would never use bottles, only station pumps. Much easier, cleaner and cheaper.

 

[oldiesontour]

As a side if you have a choice go fiat diagnostic software ( multieuscan) much cheaper/easier than Citroen Peugeot (Diagbox)

 

[Lenny HB]

It shouldn't come to any harm but shouldn't leave a van standing for 3 months it can lead to lots of problems. If not using mine for a while I take it for a 15-20 mile drive every few weeks.

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[oldiesontour]

Anti crystalise additives are available,I just bought some £17. ISH .from memory 5 ml per 10 LTRs..250 mil bottle .Does it work don't know When weather improves I will mix some up and spill a bit see what happens, sceptical as surely at least some adblue manufacturers would add it as a USP !

 

[ctc]

If you do have problems with an Adblue system you'll need a second mortgage and be very lucky if any spares are available.

 

[oldiesontour]

Tell me about it I've been trying to find diagnostics kit to reset /renew it nobody seems to know what will do it for certain even seller of the kit (Peugeot boxer) but once you have right diagnostics new tank with pump sensors and electronics £750 nox sensor £100, injector £100 1 to 2 hours work,used tanks between 2 and 4 hundred pounds.
How garages/ main agents come up £2 K+ for tank fitted(around 1 HR work) and still often get the diagnosis wrong)

 

[BikerGraham]

If you do have problems with an Adblue system you'll need a second mortgage and be very lucky if any spares are available.

That’s why there has been the emergence of companies who just delete the software.

Very expensive to fix. If you can get the parts and that’s if they can determine what is actually wrong. And all needs to be done before the countdown mileage time runs out and you are left with a 2 tonne metal paper weight.

 

[BikerGraham]

Tell me about it I've been trying to find diagnostics kit to reset /renew it nobody seems to know what will do it for certain even seller of the kit (Peugeot boxer) but once you have right diagnostics new tank with pump sensors and electronics £750 nox sensor £100, injector £100 1 to 2 hours work,used tanks between 2 and 4 hundred pounds.
How garages/ main agents come up £2 K+ for tank fitted(around 1 HR work) and still often get the diagnosis wrong)

Mercedes
£500-£700 per sensor and there are two of them and £1900 for the tank. Plus diagnostics and fitting at £176 per hour.

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[oldiesontour]

Ouch the joy of Merc's.!
Was quoted £650 ( Delphi ECU has to have dpf and other stuff removed from ECU as wellto remove from ECU,but talk of dvsa introduction of strict nox testing for MOT,so then reinstall and sort original problem

 

[BikerGraham]

Ouch the joy of Merc's.!
Was quoted £650 ( Delphi ECU has to have dpf and other stuff removed from ECU as wellto remove from ECU,but talk of dvsa introduction of strict nox testing for MOT,so then reinstall and sort original problem

That’s been talked about for a few years now. That and investigating the ECU. Whether it will work is open for debate though.

Reckon will create another bigger problem then as all the vehicles with the software deleted or bypassed would then need sorting out. But with what. There is a world shortage of the spares, apparently.

 

[oldiesontour]

Maybe they won't,but at £650 and dpf left out( what damage to hardware ?) Not a risk I will take on a 3 year old vehicle... diagnostics...Diagbox £150...max cost tank £750. We do read a lot about failures,but do people only post when there's a problem..I suspect hundreds of thousands of adblue vehicles do millions of miles every year without problems Just hope yours is one of the majority!!!

 

[Prop]

Would the adblue tank, nox sensors etc be covered in 3 year warranty or classed as wear and tear?

 

[Brains]

I'd try not to leave any vehicle standing around for months at a time.

I had major problems with a Citroen Berlingo left standing around for 3 months through the hot summer of 2021.
Citroen eventually replaced the entire AdBlu plumbing system, twice, all on warranty.

What is odd, is I've not put any AdBlu into the vehicle since ........

(So that is how a major Citroen dealer got around the AdBlu problem, rechip their own vehicles.)
They also disabled the auto start/stop for heavy traffic.
I always ensured the same dealer does the MoT etc, so if it ever fails, they know 'exactly' why.

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[Reallyretired]

It shouldn't come to any harm but shouldn't leave a van standing for 3 months it can lead to lots of problems. If not using mine for a while I take it for a 15-20 mile drive every few weeks.

Very wise, however due to forthcoming operations for both of us ours is Sorned so not practical I'm afraid.

 

[the1andonly]

The advice on using Fiat for availability of software i think is very prudent. Ok fiat hasnt been using adblu for as long as peugeot citroen, so did they learn from their mistakes and design a better / more reliable system or the failures havent filtered through yet? (started in late 2019 )
Now our Irish you tube DPF specialist has regular videos about adblu issues with P&C but none of the new Fiats yet (to my knowledge).