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AD 13 1.1J
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WHERE FROM AND HOW MUCH?
At the end of the first week in January, CM carried out a snapshot survey into the availability and cost of AdBlue. We spoke to dealers representing the seven major manufacturers in Cardiff, Felixstowe and 1 Sinesicle all areas with significant road transport activity.The survey covered the retail and bulk cost of small (five-litre) and medium (10-20 litre) containers.
Although MAN has no Euro-4 SCR trucks on sale in the UK, it has to service the needs of any international operators using AdBlue Euro-.5 vehicles over here. Similarly Scania, while primarily an EGR brand, has to provide AdBlue for its Euro-4 V8-engined models, so both networks were included in the survey.
Only three dealers, two Daf and one Mercedes-Benz. offered live-litre containers, and it is no surprise that this is a relatively expensive way to buy. Both Daf dealers charged £4.28 per pack (86p/lit);M-B was cheaper at £3.70 (74p/lit).
The most popular AdBlue packages are 10 and 18 litres 18 litres sounds an odd unit. but it equates to about 20kg,considered the maximum that one person can safely lift.
In our survey group only the Daf dealers sold the bigger containers.Of the five mainstream SCR marques, only M-B's Ipswich dealer failed to offer either small or medium containers.
Some networks seem to have regularised their prices.All three Daf dealers sang from the same song sheet their 18-litre containers cost E12.69,or 71p/lit.Iveco dealers were also consistent with their 10-litre pricestwo wanted 81p/lit, while the third asked 78p/lit. In contrast the two M-B dealers who offered retail containers varied wildly, from just 64p/lit in Newcastle upon Tyne to 93p/lit in Cardiff.
Two Volvo dealers wanted to charge a reasonable 75p/lit., but in Felixstowe the price was just 58p/lit, bringing the average price for Volvo 10-litre containers to the same 71p/lit as Daf's bigger units. The sole Scania dealer offering AdBlue, Silurian in Cardiff, also charged 71p/lit. Neither of the other Scania dealers had any AdBlue, although Scania Newcastle had some on order, andTruckEast in Felixstowe admitted they should be stocking it.
At least most dealerships know what AdBlue is two of the MAN dealers had never heard of it.The helpful man at MANERF Folkestone knew what we were talking about, but still didn't stock any.
Of the marques that do use AdBlue in all their Euro-4 trucks, perhaps Renault's position is the most baffling. Two of its dealers wanted £133.22 for a 10-litre container (an astonishing althoughThompson Commercials in Newcastle initaliy couldn't give prices, quoting "issues with Renault's system".The Cardiff dealer never rang back.
Renault Trucks aftermarket director Bruce Allison says all dealers were issued with launch stock and point-of-sale material in September but it seems some effort is still needed to communicate this information to customer-facing staff.
We had expected bulk AdBlue supplies to be fairly widely available, but were surprised to find only eight of the 21 dealers in our survey could oblige. Daf was the only network with all three dealers providing bulk supplies, but the good news is pricing is reasonably consistent at 33-45p/lit and averaging out at 39pilit.
Almost a year since the fi rst AdBlue trucks hit UK roads, parts of the in dustry are still
nowhere near ready for the challenge. While some marques, notably Daf and lveco, have their acts together, confusion reigns elsewhere.
When we set our baseline AdBlue figures for calculating the running costs of SCR trucks, we settled on 40p/lit as a typical operator cost.This figure is just one penny adrift of the surVey's average bulk price but we're still not sure how many operators are buying in bulk. Where AdBlue is available from roadside outlets, major producer Yara quotes a typical price of 45-48p/lit. •