On the Road Again!

Today's jobs in between rain showers was to get down to Dover and fill the LPG tanks before we start the holiday.   Dover BP by the entrance to the Western Docks, where the cruise ships dock, was £1.199 per litre. Luckily they had plenty but I had phoned up before we made the trip. I took photos of both gauges before we went. Right bottle Left bottle We tend to use the right side bottle more than the left as it is easier to access the tap to turn the gas on. When we got home I filled the AdBlue up from the containers in the garage. It used all of the 4 litre Redex branded AdBlue, plus another 1½ to 2 litres from the huge 10 litre bottle from Aldi.  For good measure I emptied in a full bottle of Wynn's Crystal Clear and Protect anti crystallisation liquid in with the new fill.  This should see us through the entire holiday trip. If there's any on the pump in Spain I might top up there as it is much cheaper than here. That's another pre-trip job dealt with. Whilst I wa...

After the part fill last week in Framlingham when the light came on, I filled the tank today from the remnants of the 10 litre Aldi AdBlue. It took the best part of another 5 litres. The mileage on the odometer was 16386. It is now filled right up the pipe!

The last fill was back in Spain at the Bonarea petrol station on the road towards the N340 in Peñiscola.  The odometer was showing 14462 miles. The reason is simply that the AdBlue warning light came on. In the year we have had the Malibu this has never happened before. I usually top up from bottles more often. Checking back, that fill at the Bonarea station was on October 9th and we have done 1752 miles since then.  Maybe that's why the warning light came on? We found the Coop garage in Framlingham and bought a 5 litre container of it. It actually costs more than diesel per litre. In Peñiscola on the pump is about 35p a litre. Here it was £14 for the 5 litres. That went in at 16214 miles on the odometer. I need to get that in my notebook!  Incidentally,  the station in Framlingham also had an LPG pump.

On the way back from Suffolk to the Garden of England the AdBlue warning light came on. Rather than get ripped off at the Shell on the approach to the Orwell Bridge I looked at other stations... a BP near Colchester showing it on the signage below diesel... £1.399 a litre!!! Today at Home Bargains got 10 litres for £7.99. Yes it's heavy. Yes it's harder to pour.... It took a fraction under 10 litres to be up the filler.... so based on my notes, 230 miles to the litre. It seems it's another rip off we have to endure in the UK. In Peñiscola last year I filled up old Molly's tank at €0.39 a litre!!

With the van sitting about a bit, I decided to get another bottle of this stuff to ensure that the AdBlue doesn't crystallise. I have it from Amazon on a subscription.  It saves a few pence. The next delivery will be in January.

The tank took around 9 litre to overflow at 11035 miles. Plus 250ml of Wynn's Crystal Clear and Protect, treatment that stops AdBlue crystallising. The previous fill was at 8899 and so we have covered 2136 miles. I had expected a little more than 230 miles per litre! By the time we get back from Sissinghurst at the weekend we'll have covered another 2000 miles or so since the last fill.  I have quite a lot of the last batch in the garage and I might treat that with some of the Wynn's before use in the van. I had hoped that the next time we will need to top up will be when we are in Spain.  I don't think we can wait anther 1000 miles and before Spain we have another few trip here in the UK. It was very cheap, as was diesel, at the station on the way from the A7/N340 towards  Peñíscola. I topped up "old" Molly there last year.

With the van currently locked away in storage I can't see the actual mileage on the odometer but it's around 11030.  I've not topped up the AdBlue tank since away back at 8899 when we were stung at a Shell garage near Ipswich. I saw that Aldi had ten litre bottles in stock the other day at around £12.  I'll get one tomorrow and fill up the van when we get it on Friday for our weekend in Buckinghamshire. With about 2100 miles since the last fill up i expect it to take all ten litres quite easily. If pumped AdBlue was comparable in price I'd use that.  Let's see how this goes.

With the last two vans I simply topped up the AdBlue tank every so often from five litre containers. Bought in 5 litre bottles either from Home Bargains or B&M.  The problem we have been told is that it's not easy to know whether it's started to crystallise or not. Crystallising can cause problems when it's injected into the exhaust.  The problem I think is restricted to vehicles that spend a lot of time sitting about.  I might be wrong! What we have had happen is the warning ⚠️ light coming on to say the AdBlue level was getting low.  Rather than let it get too low we dropped into the Shell station on the westbound A14/A12 heading towards the Orwell Bridge in Suffolk. The station has dedicated pumps. The odometer was showing 8899 miles. I put in 12 litres.  I thought it was a bit early as we had only done 1189 miles since collecting it from the dealers. I would have expected it to be full. Since then we have done another 1100 miles and the light is not on y...

A better night. Reggie reduced the whinging to more acceptable levels before going to sleep and so we managed to get through the night until around 7am! When I did get up so that he could have his morning constitutional there was a thick frost. I had turned the heating down to 15° overnight. The Truma dump hadn't automatically opened.  I took a couple of photos of the frost and whilst he had his breakfast we had another hour in bed. Of course, once we were awake he was snoring in his bed! We cleared up. The EHU cable where the early morning sun was shining in it was nice and supple. The other 20m was like trying to coil up and iron bar!! We were well on the way to Claire's sister's before we remembered that I had forgotten to empty the toilet cassette!!! Damn. We had a nice chat and coffee with Sally and her husband and just before midday we were on the road to Yoxford and the A12. It seemed to take ages!! Finally away. The roads weren't to busy....

Molly went into the storage place today.  For some strange reason I went the wrong way!  We had a tour of Romney Marsh and passed the storage on the "wrong" side! I had to do a U-turn and go back!  DOH!  So 10 miles instead of 6! On the way the "range to empty" showed the most we have had in miles since we got Molly. She'll be there for a few weeks I think until we know more about the trip to Spain and Claire's root canal treatment. Hopefully, the dentistry will go off okay and we will be able to go as planned. The current plan doesn't allow much time to relax on the way to Alcoceber as we have four overnights to get there. Before she went in I drained the fresh water through the waste water tank by running the tap in the bathroom with a little disinfectant to run through the pipes and go into the waste tank. Whilst that was emptying I topped up the wash/wiper bottle. It took 2.5 litres to fill that from the 5 litre container I bought in Spain earlier in...