UNOFFICIAL Adblue Heater Element Failure Thread

Warranty was 80,000KM, I was at 89000.

NSTDI said:

Warranty was 80,000KM, I was at 89000.

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What's that in Freedom Units?

(kidding, kidding, it's about 5600 miles)

ETA: And wait a minute, 80,000km is about 50,000 miles. Is that what your bumper-to-bumper warranty is up there? Or is it a federal emissions thing that VW wasn't able to buy^H^H^Hweasel their way out of?

Bumper to Bumper in Canada is 4 years, 80,000 km's

Adblue heater failure at 40,800 miles

CEL came on at 40,800 miles, 32 months of ownership. The dealer is estimating $1,600, but said they would try working with VW to see if the entire repair will be covered.
This is my first VW and most expensive repair of any car I've owned in my 32 years of car ownership.
Now I'm wondering if I should sell after the repair and go back to Toyota. Have two Toyotas with 400,000 miles between them that never had a repair like this.

I'm in Northern California (Sacramento area) and am willing to speak with someone at CARB if VW doesn't take care of my P202B issue.

jlh1960 said:

CEL came on at 40,800 miles, 32 months of ownership. The dealer is estimating $1,600, but said they would try working with VW to see if the entire repair will be covered.
This is my first VW and most expensive repair of any car I've owned in my 32 years of car ownership.
Now I'm wondering if I should sell after the repair and go back to Toyota. Have two Toyotas with 400,000 miles between them that never had a repair like this.

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That's what I'm thinking. If this is what it's like to own a VW (8000 miles out of warranty and a four-figure repair on a known issue) I don't want any part of it. I've owned cars for 25 years and I've never had a repair even remotely near this expensive either.

If VW and/or the dealer will cover it I'll consider it no harm, no foul, but if they don't then this will be my first and last VW even though I like the car very much. It would be one thing if it were an isolated bit of bad luck, but this is obviously a pretty widespread problem.

I was just told no warranty coverage for this repair. Cost quoted now is $1,130. I will complain to Volkswagen and see if they can't do better. If not, I'll contact people with more pull. Believe it or not, I know a class-action attorney. This is not a fluke.

jlh1960 said:

I was just told no warranty coverage for this repair. Cost quoted now is $1,130. I will complain to Volkswagen and see if they can't do better. If not, I'll contact people with more pull. Believe it or not, I know a class-action attorney. This is not a fluke.

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I was wondering if people got traction because VW is afraid of a class action suit.

I took mine in yesterday and the service manager was not hopeful that VW would help me because I didn't get my 40K done at a dealer. He said that the fact that the 40K has absolutely nothing to do with the issue doesn't matter, they look at loyalty to VW and its dealers. That's horse hockey, of course, because it's not about that, it's about standing by a product that has a widespread issue that is very expensive to repair, and in my case is a whopping 8,000 miles out of the bumper-to-bumper.

If he can't help me (and I truly feel he will do everything he can to get VWoA to do something), I'll call VWoA and try to raise cain. My only real backup is the VW shop that did my DSG service. I called them and he said there are now repair kids for the heater element so the whole tank doesn't need to be replaced, and said it would cost ~800, parts and labor.

They're honest, do great work, and stand by it. Sounds like the kind of place I'd demonstrate loyalty to.

Great news. The Service Manager was able to work some magic and they're going to do the repair for a $100 deductible. That was honestly more than I was hoping for (and given what he said yesterday I wasn't expecting anything), and I'm thrilled. Good on VWoA and great on my dealership.

Mr. Furious said:

Great news. The Service Manager was able to work some magic and they're going to do the repair for a $100 deductible. That was honestly more than I was hoping for (and given what he said yesterday I wasn't expecting anything), and I'm thrilled. Good on VWoA and great on my dealership.

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Good job! I'm hoping I get better news when I go in to pick up my car today. Called VW Customer Care and was told they'd have my "case" assigned for response by the end of tomorrow.

dropped our passat off and was shortly told that vw will not cover the repair through their emissions warranty. Instead, I'm actually using the extended warranty we purchased for the first time and a 100.00 deductible. To me this is a bunch of bs...just another thing to add to the list of things that really have turned me off to even considering another vw product ever. I do hope someone at vw is reading this.... You have lost a vw owner that has purchased 8 of your vehicles over the years...specifically tdi's. The passat and our experience in owning it has turned us completely off to ever purchasing another new car from you .... you lost a customer who is ready to upgrade to an suv.

I called VW of America and spoke to a very nice person who said she would refer my case up the ladder. Four hours later, I got a call from the dealer saying the repair would be covered. Again, this is at just under 32 months and under 41,000 miles.

My Adblue heating element failed last week at 61,000. The service department initially told me that since I purchased the extended warranty with Fidelity, that the part would be covered. Well, he came back 20 minutes later and told me they were denying the claim as not a covered part and I was on the hook for $1,000. I contacted VW of America on Monday and explained my situation. I politely explained that my issue wasn't so much with VW. I understand sensors blow and parts fail, although I would have hoped I could have gotten further than 61,000 before my check engine light came on. I said what upset me was this Fidelity company. Had I known they were going to pick and choose what parts they decide to cover, I would have thought twice before spending $1,900 on this extended warranty. A very nice woman named Bridgette said she would open a claim and turn it over to a VW Case Manager. On Wednesday, I received a phone call from a woman named Julie at VW Corporate who said they had contacted my dealer and made a deal for them to cover 75% of the cost. My dealership has ordered my parts and will contact me when they come in to schedule an appointment to get them put on. As this is my 3rd VW, I can't say enough good things about them. They really put in the effort to make this right.

ID Parts Adblue Repair kit. Still not as cheap as other sources. I also saw some thread about Canadian dealer only charging $310 for the part. Windsor isn't far for me!

I have P202A. I will be taking my car to the dealer for 60k oil and fuel filter change, so I'll ask how cheaply they offer to repair the DEF heater. Otherwise, I have a couple months to do it myself.

Year: 2013
Mileage: Appox 44,700 Miles
Warning Light(s): MIL
Code(s): P202B Redundant Tank Heater Control Circuit Low
Any symptoms or problems before diagnosis: None
Repair Time: 2.5 hours labor
Any pertinent info from dealer: Need to replace,
(1) Heater repair kit (part# 561-198-970-A) $625
(2) Control Module (part# 941-329) $242
(3) Adblue pump (part# 561-198-969) $500
With labor, parts and shop supplies the estimate was $1,939.60 (inc. taxes)! I was in disbelief at their estimate and definitely consider this a premature failure that is occurring with a high incidence. I tweeted @VW using #VWcares and also contacted VW cares over the phone explaining the situation politely requesting that VW of America help me out and they opened a case. Separately VWofA also responded to my tweet acknowledging I have contacted them and they are looking into it.
A day later I was contacted by VWofA region service manager with an offer to pay 100% for parts and dealership would discount the labor to the warranty price. Basically I have paid $177 (inc. taxes) for the diagnosis and will pay approx. $238 (inc. taxes) for the labor when the work gets done next week.
Thanks to the shared experiences of the members on this thread, I was able to save myself a major repair expense!

In another thread, someone mentioned anecdotally that they had topped off their DEF tank just prior to the CEL coming on and throwing a P202A and P202B.

I didn't mention it because I thought it was a coincidence, but I filled my DEF tank not long before the light came on as well. In my case I filled it because the MFI warning came on. I filled it right away, less than a week after it started, and there was plenty of cushion in the mileage estimate. It took the full 2.5 gallons that I bought. I purchased it at AutoZone.

Coincidentally, mine threw the 205B code the day after I did the 50K service which included adding about 2 gallon of DEF to top it off. I did not have a warning light regarding DEF level prior to service.

I have the 10k thermistor in house and will wait until the DEF has been used up a bit before swapping out the sensor so I don't have to wrestle with a full tank.

Joining the gang.

2012 Passat
P205B Reductant tank temp sensor.
112,000 miles (yeah that's not a typo)

On phone with VW customer care now waiting for them to tell me there's nothing they can do.

Off phone with VW customer care. Nope, no love for the guy with high mileage.

I've shown VW sooooo much patience with their diesels. This will DEF be the last one (pun intended)

Message after AdBlue fill

Same as others, filled tank with Peak AdBlue (from Autozone) - - took all 2.5 gallons. Right after that, threw CEL and same 2 codes. Cleared twice with OBD2 reader (before I bought Ross-Tech Micro-CAN), and all has been fine now for a few days.

Maybe something to do with the temp change when filling with (cold'ish) AdBlue on a (warm'ish) day triggers the sensor? No idea, but interesting that others have seemingly seen this same behavior.

Went ahead and purchased the new heater kit from ECS Tuning just to have it on hand when it eventually DOES really fail.

My AdBlue Heater Fail

2012 Passat TDI SE
75000 miles
Malfunction Indicator Light (MIL) - Solid light, not blinking.
No prior symptoms - cool morning, came on after fill up.
Dealer called and said $900 to repair, not covered under 80K warranty. Called VW Customer CARE, no help from them. After speaking to the Service Manager, bla bla 80k mile maintenance coming up bla bla cant afford this bla bla VW lied about "Clean Diesel" bla bla, got a call the next morning from him and VW agreed to cover all of it
I don't know if a little bla bla will work in all cases, but it doesn't hurt to try. For the record, I've been loyal to my dealership.

Just got back from VW to work on 2 recalls and fault code

9632 - Reductant Level Sensor
P203B 00 [036] - Implausible Signal
Intermittent - Not Confirmed - Tested Since Memory Clear
Freeze Frame:
Fault Status: 00000001
Fault Priority: 2
Fault Frequency: 1
Mileage: 71576 km
Date: 2015.09.26
Time: 13:25:32
Needless to say, my comprehensive ($3K) warranty doesn't cover this fix since they consider it to an emission problem which is excluded from my policy. The dealership told me it would about $1100 to fix, but he was going to call VW on Monday to see if they will take care of cost to repair. Since I live in S. AZ this shouldn't be a problem to continue to drive my car, plus tank is filled with the ADBlue.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed because I definitely don't want to pay more than $100 dollars, which would have been my deductible.
After reading the posts on this thread it seems this is a common problem.

Also, asked them about dieselgate, and they still haven't gotten direction from VW as to what they are going to do to fix the problem. I feel sorry for the salesperson who are now not selling much since this came out.

gothicreader said:

Just got back from VW to work on 2 recalls and fault code

9632 - Reductant Level Sensor
P203B 00 [036] - Implausible Signal
Intermittent - Not Confirmed - Tested Since Memory Clear
Freeze Frame:
Fault Status: 00000001
Fault Priority: 2
Fault Frequency: 1
Mileage: 71576 km
Date: 2015.09.26
Time: 13:25:32
Needless to say, my comprehensive ($3K) warranty doesn't cover this fix since they consider it to an emission problem which is excluded from my policy. The dealership told me it would about $1100 to fix, but he was going to call VW on Monday to see if they will take care of cost to repair. Since I live in S. AZ this shouldn't be a problem to continue to drive my car, plus tank is filled with the ADBlue.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed because I definitely don't want to pay more than $100 dollars, which would have been my deductible.
After reading the posts on this thread it seems this is a common problem.

Also, asked them about dieselgate, and they still haven't gotten direction from VW as to what they are going to do to fix the problem. I feel sorry for the salesperson who are now not selling much since this came out.

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Hard for VW to say the adblue system is not covered when in fact their recent scandal and admission shows they cannot pass without it.

Busydiver said:

Hard for VW to say the adblue system is not covered when in fact their recent scandal and admission shows they cannot pass without it.

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Funny how the extended warranty people say it's an emissions problem, but when you ask Volkswagen to cover it under the emissions warranty, they say it isn't covered, only within the 36/36k.

Which is it?

jlh1960 said:

Funny how the extended warranty people say it's an emissions problem, but when you ask Volkswagen to cover it under the emissions warranty, they say it isn't covered, only within the 36/36k.
Which is it?

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I'm wondering about that too!

Hi, well, the CEL came back on, so I went ahead and installed the new heater repair kit from ECS (using the excellent write-up that's a sticky on this forum). Net: the ECS kit DOES fit, with one modification (even though it's apparently for the Toureg). One of the 2 leads (the one with 4 colored wires in it) is too short to reach where it needs to be on the top of the NMS AdBlue tank. If you are comfortable cutting the lead off of the old (failed) element and using it to extend the lead on the new one, then you're all set! So the replacement cost was $235 plus about 2 hours in labor. (I took off the whole rear bumper cover as the sticky recommended; it was not hard, just a bit fiddly.)

Did you contact ECS and inform them that the part they sold you didn't fit, w/o modification? They should correct this issue before they sell any more NMS Passat AdBlue replacement kits. (THANKS for the heads-up)

I can't visualize the location of the wiring harness, but I would NOT be happy having to cut/splice/solder wiring on a new replacement part that was sold to be plug-and-play. I also would not want to reuse ANY of the OEM wiring.

2012 Passat Sel tdi
CEL P202B (pd)
68.5k
Cleared it with CEL oohDbooty scanner and it has not come back.

EDIT: posted this on 9/28, now 10/6, the CEL came back on in less than an hour. Wife reported a lot more power before it went back into CEL mode.

No, I didn't. Because I learned from postings on this forum that the link one of the posters provided to ECS is expressly for a Toureg, but "should fit." (ECS's tool on their website, if you put in your info, says "doesn't fit" an NMS Passat.)

Given that the heater repair kit expressly for an NMS Passat is $499 elsewhere, I decided that I would be the guinea pig for the $235 kit from ECS. And it was indeed seemingly identical other than the one too-short harness (but which contained the exact same color-coded wires inside).

If saving $264 is not worth it to you because you're uncomfortable soldering and heat-wrapping 4 wires, then by all means, you absolutely should get the 100% correct kit.

I only wanted to confirm what others had speculated on here, since I just did the repair this weekend.

aja8888 said:

I'm wondering about that too!

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VW may have used that excuse before but no more. The work they will need to do to meet the regs. will show beyond any doubt the ad-blue system and components are emission and covered under the emission warranty. Or another way to say it ...if the adblue meant nothing then why would you get a warning light indicating miles remaining and if you don't refill the engine cannot be restarted? VW tried to get away with this BS line and fixing a few heaters will be chump change when compared to what they will be paying out over this fraud.

Mark Neil said:

No, I didn't. Because I learned from postings on this forum that the link one of the posters provided to ECS is expressly for a Toureg, but "should fit." (ECS's tool on their website, if you put in your info, says "doesn't fit" an NMS Passat.)

Given that the heater repair kit expressly for an NMS Passat is $499 elsewhere, I decided that I would be the guinea pig for the $235 kit from ECS. And it was indeed seemingly identical other than the one too-short harness (but which contained the exact same color-coded wires inside).

If saving $264 is not worth it to you because you're uncomfortable soldering and heat-wrapping 4 wires, then by all means, you absolutely should get the 100% correct kit.

I only wanted to confirm what others had speculated on here, since I just did the repair this weekend.

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Thanks for the clarification. I have another question, though.
You think the kit designed for a 3.0 CRTDI is the same as for the 2.0 CRTDI? That's a leap of faith I wouldn't take. "...seemingly identical..." just doesn't work for me.