Consumption
AdBlue® consumption is determined by many factors including engine load, travelling terrain, engine size and temperature. The best way to estimate AdBlue® usage is by comparison to the amount of diesel that you would expect to use. The following estimates are based on both customer experience and our years of operating SCR systems in the Tennants fleet.
Commercial vehicles
The average consumption of AdBlue for HGVs and LCVs will depend of the type of vehicles that you are driving, e.g. Truck, refuse vehicle or van. The journey type and level of use will also have an impact on how hard the engine needs to work and therefore on how much AdBlue will be consumed.
In general, you can expect consumption to be between 4% to 8% of the diesel consumption. In other words, you will use about 6 litres of AdBlue for every 100 litres of diesel. Therefore you will be filling your AdBlue tank less frequently than your tank for diesel.
Estimated usage for HGVs:
The average use of AdBlue® vs diesel for trucks is 4 to 8%
| Quantity of Diesel per week (litres) |
| Application: |
1000 |
2500 |
5000 |
7500 |
10000 |
15000 |
20000 |
25000 |
35000 |
50000 |
| Light duty (<18 tonne GVW) |
30 |
75 |
150 |
225 |
300 |
450 |
600 |
750 |
1050 |
1500 |
| Medium duty |
50 |
125 |
250 |
375 |
500 |
750 |
1000 |
1250 |
1750 |
2500 |
| Heavy duty (>35 tonne GVW) |
60 |
150 |
300 |
450 |
600 |
900 |
1200 |
1500 |
2100 |
3000 |
| Quantity of AdBlue per week (litres) |
Bus & Coach
AdBlue® usage in buses & coaches depends mainly upon the type of routes that are being operated, as AdBlue® does not inject into the exhaust system unless it is above at least 200ºC. As a guide we would recommend using the following estimated consumption for planning storage, but as always the vehicle supplier should be consulted if accurate figures are needed:
| Local/Urban routes: |
9 litres AdBlue® per day per vehicle |
| National/long distance routes: |
15 litres AdBlue® per day per vehicle |
Agricultural & Construction
AdBlue® usage by vehicles and machines in this class varies greatly, due to the wide range of operating conditions and engine demands, for example a tractor being used as either a stationary or motive power source.
A ratio of 5 to 10% of the diesel usage is used to calculate the required AdBlue® quantity.
Passenger Cars
Passenger cars do not have the operating loads compared to a bus or commercial vehicle and because of this the engine sizes are significantly smaller. Additionally typical car mileages are comparatively less than a HGV. However, the car will have much smaller AdBlue tank, which means there is a likelihood that the car with will require an AdBlue top up between service intervals.
You should never fill any fluid other than genuine AdBlue® into your vehicle's tank. Diluting the AdBlue® or filling the tank with any other fluid is not recommended.
Specific information is available in the vehicle handbook, however, typical usages are:
Mid-class diesel (For example VW Passat or BMW 3-Series) 1 litre AdBlue® for 1,000 km
SUV/MPV class diesel (for example Range Rover or Toyota Hilux): 1.5 litre AdBlue® for 1,000 km