AdBlue Discussion and Issues

You’d think that wouldn’t you?

I had a member of staff who lived 40 miles away from my office, I let him travel to work and back in his company T6 without charge.

He appeared in the office at 16:55 on a Friday night claiming he only had 20 miles left on his Adblue and what were we going to do about it?

I suggested that in future he topped it up sooner (to be fair I flipped out at him for being so stupid) he went to the nearest Halfords and brought himself 10 litres of Adblue, kept the receipt and topped it up himself so that he could get himself home.

In his rush to get home and feeling very inconvenienced about the vehicle ‘suddenly’ having to be topped up he then proceeds to put 10ltrs of Adblue in his diesel tank and then when the van conked out just half a mile or so up the road he then calls me expecting somebody to drop him off another van so he could get home.

£7000 of damage and in mitigation he claimed he didn’t know what he was doing and that nobody had trained him on how to fill the van correctly.

This guy was early 60’s and had rebuilt a classic Norton from scratch, so not exactly a dizzy blonde...

Never underestimate people’s stupidity.

Saying that this must be extremely frustrating would be an understatement. One might wonder if there may be some element of contempt. If you are allowing a vehicles use for private use free of charge. Does the employee declare that on his TAX or is that another freebie. Have I misunderstood. Obviously and justifiably you appear very vexed. Your discomfort is palpable. The way forward might be to ask for vehicles to be returned to base and you or a trustee checks over day to day maintenance, such as Ad-blue etc. Can you claim this sort of thing against any sort of insurance? Is it even possible to insure against this sort of thing? The only thing is, I would not mind betting that this guy feels extremely uncomfortable and will be feeling the whole World is looking at him accusingly. I would not like to be him. He may be very, very worried about his future. This is not very good for him or you. He is bound to be defensive, one may not see immediate contrition but inside he is likely to feel very bad. No doubt you are very concerned about the costs and how much future over-site you may need to exercise over staff, including training. Increased work and responsibility for you! It is how to manage these situations, that is so difficult and embarrassing for everyone. I certainly would not like to be any one of the people, in this situation.

I believe because there is obviously an increasing amount of incidents concerning AD-Blue. Some causing minor complications and cost. Others, like this case, catastrophic costs, complications and follow on implications including potential mental heath issues. That the manufacturers, have made very flawed engineering decisions and management of the whole Ad-Blue situation. It has been too hastily adopted. Probably because of pressure from governments. No matter how simple and strait forward the system, may seem to others, some do not find it so, evidently! This is not the first case we have read about on these pages of Ad-Blue in the diesel tank and it will not be the last either. We will not even hear about most of them because of catastrophe and the ridicule of know it all clever clog people who probably will unfortunately go on to make their own blunders in life that may have even further reaching consequences. Why, are Ad-Blue filler nozzles, even mounted next to fuel fillers. It is not an every day task that needs attending to. Far better if it was mounted within the engine bay. They developed systems to help prevent putting wrong fuel into some vehicles. This needs a similar or greater amount of thought. Many older people will never have come across Ad-blue systems, younger people may just take this sort of thing for granted and will refuse to see a problem. Until something is changed we will hear about more of this.

I am very sorry to hear about this.
 
Edit to say I found the quote, it was £6k, not £7K

He was finally dismissed for gross misconduct, but he didn't go easily and tried to drag things out as much as he could.

He was claiming he wasn't told/shown how to fill the Adblue, the manual was in the glove box or he could have asked Halfords to fill it for him. He also claimed that he was being singled out and forced to drive a T6 when the other guys were driving Transits (they also have Adblue), the fuel was free, he didn't declare his BiK and just a few weeks before he filled the Adblue in the fuel tank he came into work and didn't think to mention how the side of his van had been reversed into. From memory the Adblue damage was £7k and the side damage £4.5k, we did consider pursuing him for the engine damages but the insurance covered us in the end. There were some other inconsistencies in his story too, such as the van had 25,000 miles on it, he had driven it from new so we believe he must have previously filled it up on at least one occasion, the garage said they do not top up Adblue as a courtesy on commercial vehicles so we don't think it was topped up during its first service, he had to have topped it up.

My argument was nobody ever showed me how to top up my van, and neither did the other 30ish drivers with Adblue equipped vans. Even my wife has successfully filled up her Q5 without any trouble at all.

RTFM or ask a grown up!
 

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@T6ARF I wouldn’t want to sound controversial or challenging in any way, but the problem here is not the need to reduce emissions - that is an imperative - it is poor engineering design by VW. Other car manufacturers manage to build engines that meet and exceed emission standards without compromising reliability or performance (and without cheating even!) The shame and blame here is squarely on VW for sloppy engineering!
 
I agree @Mysticboer. I set out in detail at the start of this thread that I did regular long journeys and use good quality fuel. However my van has been plagued with EGR problems. VW’s bizarre demands of how I should use my vehicle are laughable, as you say, it’s no excuse for poor design.
 
:thumbsup: Agreed Fella’s! It’s just such a shame that VW (and therefore us T6 owners) is plagued with these issues, but like you say, it’s solely down to them and they’ve had long enough to sort these engineering problems out!
 
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It's always alarming when you read things like this and owners frustrations at not getting proper support from manufacturers. Even more so when you are soon to take ownership of a vehicle with clear potential to be impacted.

Reading the thread, could someone clarify something for me please? Does this issue affect all T6's right across their history or is it predominantly earlier builds?
 
It's always alarming when you read things like this and owners frustrations at not getting proper support from manufacturers. Even more so when you are soon to take ownership of a vehicle with clear potential to be impacted.

Reading the thread, could someone clarify something for me please? Does this issue affect all T6's right across their history or is it predominantly earlier builds?
Euro6, so mid to late 2016 onwards as far as I’m aware. If it has an Adblue tank it’s Euro6, although Adblue has nothing to do with the EGR. My Euro5 (May2016 reg) is problem free.
 
Euro6, so mid to late 2016 onwards as far as I’m aware. If it has an Adblue tank it’s Euro6, although Adblue has nothing to do with the EGR. My Euro5 (May2016 reg) is problem free.
Thanks.

Yeah ours is a 19 plate Euro6.

Very worrying.
 
Yes, well, when they want to, they'll make every allegation they can, especially the "I've not been trained to (whatever)". Someone will have suggested that's a handy get-out argument, probably a shop steward type from the good old days of British industry. Having escaped from a toxic work environment where too many of the people working for me were plying that argument in their "new" jobs (they'd gone thro a redundancy selection process before I joined) I know all about it.

Sounds like your chap had issues. Careful wording of employment contracts is well worthwhile, but in truth there is a lot to be said for having a documented protocol to ensure the safe use of company vehicles. Not just a log to check the usual safety stuff daily / weekly.
 
Please bear with me as this is my 1st Deisel. My bus says AdBlue Range = 3,500miles. Min 0.75 gal - Max 1.0 gal. I assume, and please correct me if i am wrong, that I can safely add anything between 0.75-1.0 gallon safely without overfilling.
 
Please bear with me as this is my 1st Deisel. My bus says AdBlue Range = 3,500miles. Min 0.75 gal - Max 1.0 gal. I assume, and please correct me if i am wrong, that I can safely add anything between 0.75-1.0 gallon safely without overfilling.
You are correct.

I usually switch the MFD display units to metric to get the fill amount in litres, then swap the MFD back to imperial so it shows mileage as normal afterwards.
 
Yep, I just did that. So I need to add 4.5L. Which I shall do on next fill up. Thanks Broady.
 
Please bear with me as this is my 1st Deisel. My bus says AdBlue Range = 3,500miles. Min 0.75 gal - Max 1.0 gal. I assume, and please correct me if i am wrong, that I can safely add anything between 0.75-1.0 gallon safely without overfilling.

That's correct, I wait until the adblue warning comes on at 1500 miles to go, then I top up as soon as practicable after that. I know then I can comfortably put a 10litre container in with no fear of over filling. This takes me back up to the 6000mile range. Never had an issue doing it this way in over 70000 miles.
 
Please bear with me as this is my 1st Deisel. My bus says AdBlue Range = 3,500miles. Min 0.75 gal - Max 1.0 gal. I assume, and please correct me if i am wrong, that I can safely add anything between 0.75-1.0 gallon safely without overfilling.
You can fill as much as you want.
Just don't spill it on the ground and vehicle bodywork.
There is no such a thing as overfilling adblue tank!
Whoever says so has very limited knowledge about the principles of ultrasonics and electronics in general.
 
You can fill as much as you want.
Just don't spill it on the ground and vehicle bodywork.
There is no such a thing as overfilling adblue tank!
Whoever says so has very limited knowledge about the principles of ultrasonics and electronics in general.

That, certainly, has been my experience!:)

However,:grin bounce: I believe, the whole the thread will repeat is self and that some other poor old sod, is going to get sacked now!:slow rofl:
 
VW group own Ducati and if their sensor is the same or similar as the one in my 1299s and my previous 1198s fuel tank then I'd jokingly disagree. :) Plus theres no way either were 17L. I've no idea how VW group calculate volumes because they most certainly do not add up with how much I can squeeze into a tank. Neither does the sensor which tells me to fill up immediately know what its doing as i got a further 25miles (thankfully I admit on a sunday in France) than it said I could. I've learnt to err on caution thru experience rather than take the word of VW/Audi Group. But I get your point and shall ignore it. :) I dont wish to be the case in point. Hehe.
 
VW group own Ducati and if their sensor is the same or similar as the one in my 1299s and my previous 1198s fuel tank then I'd jokingly disagree. :) Plus theres no way either were 17L. I've no idea how VW group calculate volumes because they most certainly do not add up with how much I can squeeze into a tank. Neither does the sensor which tells me to fill up immediately know what its doing as i got a further 25miles (thankfully I admit on a sunday in France) than it said I could. I've learnt to err on caution thru experience rather than take the word of VW/Audi Group. But I get your point and shall ignore it. :) I dont wish to be the case in point. Hehe.

Italy used to specialise in producing wonderful cars and motorcycles. They had 2 things in common. Rust and unreliable electrics, that only appeared to work for a short time. I rode a Ducati and drove a few Italian cars, that was a life time ago. Perhaps things never changed. They were a wonder to ride or drive .
 
That may be true of 70's Ducati's but the new ones are all pretty reliable. Altho my 916 will still cook a Reg/Rect nowandagain. But thats because its a race bike they shoved lights on. But the fuel level sensors have questionable veracity from my experience.
 
sorry if this has been covered before, but I was wondering how people have found Adblue?

I picked up a brand new T6 150bhp (not mine, company van) last December, I have just ticked over 10k miles and I’ve only had to put adblue in twice. I have put two 10 litre tubs over the year and it says 5k miles till empty.

Is this typical usage for these vans?
 
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