Adblue damage - exploded??

dBlue line, damage, Explosion?
I have a 2014 Passat TDI SE - day before Christmas Eve - Adblue error - first time seeing it - googled - filled vehicle (I was traveling, not near any dealers) - filled with Def....following reset - error went away. New Years eve - error again - drove to dealer - they replaced a sensor and took care of two recalls - that evening Adblue error again on full countdown...drove to a dealer again (closer to my hometown) and they said the previous dealer didn't replace fluid - when they fixed - drained the tank - they filled up - a day later - smoking at back of vehicle - could smell what seemed like fluid/exhaust burning.....error came back on again two days later - countdown again - but continued from previous countdown - took to dealer and told them about smoking - they opened the trunk and there was crystallization everywhere near refill area. They put vehicle on lift and you can see the pictures - not good. They said I apparently hit something?? Service manager texted me photos - Which I haven't hit anything - no speed bumps - potholes - but they say I hit something - knocked the line loose - major repairs possible and not covered under my warranty - of course. I call BS. But maybe I'm wrong? Two dealers have looked at the car and no one has mentioned this at all....https://www.flickr.com/photos/167490.../shares/51vp44

Look in my link in my signature on how to post photos. Yours don't show up, bad link.

I am so effing sick of the dealers trying to say covered repairs not covered. With the two tickets to the dealers in your glove box, you should have an ironclad case to have repairs covered under warranty.

Re:

I uploaded the photos like instructed - thanks!!

Where? They don't show up here and the link is still broken.

Let me help out

Hard to say for sure, but it does look like that area may have got bashed in a bit causing the leak.

If I was in your situation, I would go and discuss this with them in person and allow them to show you the impact points they can attribute the damage to for certain. I wouldn't allow any guessing or conclusions based on not being able to explain it some other way (as in, no funny business of, "well, there's no direct impact points here but really there's no other way it could have happened). If you hit something to cause damage, there will be telltale marks.

If those marks are there, it then becomes a point of discussion as to who struck what. If you are certain that you could not have struck anything, then a conversation about the previous service centers striking the car with something might be appropriate. VW might be willing to work something out if there's no obvious explanation but the area was struck (if the entire bottom is scraped, then a road debris might be a reasonable conclusion; if it's just the area in question it's difficult to imagine how that's the only area with damage without any surrounding and that could have been damaged while in the shop).

Lastly, once you've exhausted all of your options with the dealership and haven't received the customer care you expect, then contact VW and explain the situation. If you still haven't received satisfaction, then it might be worth discussing this with your insurance carrier. Once you do that, however, it's a one-way street in that it will be somewhere in your file for a few years depending on carrier policy and your state's law. It might be worth it compared to the cost to fix it but it might also be worth it in that VW will be forced to commit their conclusions in writing and then the underwriters will take it from there (weighing the risks of reporting low-level collision damage to your insurance agency vs. the benefit of their collision expertise and desire to subrogate as much as appropriate).

I see what looks like a rupture/tear in the aluminum shield in the bottom right of the third photo. Has anyone else been driving the car? Looks like damage from road debris, frozen snow bank etc.

Re:

Well thanks for looking into this - trying to help etc. no one has driven the car but me since I purchased it in April of 2018. Haven’t even had it a year. Ugh. I live near the coast of South Carolina so no snow banks here thankfully. I haven’t hit road debris but who knows. Maybe a pothole ?? I have hit a couple of those months back but that’s all I can think of. I will wait and see what the dealer says today - as far as cost to repair. Hope and pray it isn’t major. Gulp. Stay tuned.

Repair

Service manager says adblue injector line cracked. $500 to repair.

not bad, but they also love to toss parts at problems piece meal until it's fixed. Hopefully it's just the injector line, not a few other things.

Sounds like the initial issue was an empty tank, 2nd one probably the ad blue sensor in the tank that the service action was issued for, 3rd one seems to be the first dealers issue.... seems like the failure occured in the next day or so when you saw the smoke behind the car. It could have happened prior, but that seems to be the logical point to me.

Or the dealer smacked it with the swing arms of the hoist...…...

DSIre said:

Or the dealer smacked it with the swing arms of the hoist...…...

Click to expand...

I agree. That's what I was getting at with post #8.

Not saying I think that's what happened, I don't know enough about the geometry and hard to tell from the pictures so I can't rule it out.