To fix or to tune?

So a week ago I got a CEL on my 2012 Passat SEL. After taking a look with the vagcom it came up with two faults 1. 9688 reductant tank temp sensor and 2. 5523 engine start blocked by immobilizer. After reseting it came back the next morning while starting the car. So off to the dealership I went I got a call later that day with a qoute for $1400. The dealer says its a p205b and I need to replace the adblue control unit and repair kit. My question is will it hurt the car to drive till I decide what to do. And if it has to be fixed what parts do Would I need also just for fun would it be better to fix or to have the car tuned?

ajharbin said:

So a week ago I got a CEL on my 2012 Passat SEL. After taking a look with the vagcom it came up with two faults 1. 9688 reductant tank temp sensor and 2. 5523 engine start blocked by immobilizer. After reseting it came back the next morning while starting the car. So off to the dealership I went I got a call later that day with a qoute for $1400. The dealer says its a p205b and I need to replace the adblue control unit and repair kit. My question is will it hurt the car to drive till I decide what to do. And if it has to be fixed what parts do Would I need also just for fun would it be better to fix or to have the car tuned?

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Isn't the Adblue system part of emissions and covered for a longer period of time?

LokiWolf said:

Isn't the Adblue system part of emissions and covered for a longer period of time?

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I was told by the dealer that it would not be covered. From what I have read online there seems to be a pretty big grey area for the dpf and def systems. It seems like some parts are covered but others are not. Im just trying to weigh the price of replacing the parts that are bad which will cost $900 or driving the car till the first of the year and going with a malone stage 2 tune and dsg with rawtek dpf delete.

LokiWolf said:

Isn't the Adblue system part of emissions and covered for a longer period of time?

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Volkswagen insists that the DEF system is not covered by the emissions warranty, which makes no sense to me. It might be worthwhile to inquire with the EPA to find out what their thoughts on the subject are.

I would fix it. The AdBlue pump kit is about $500 and you can probably do it yourself if you are handy. You'll have to drop the DEF tank and replace the pump/heater module.

I had this same issue a while back. Faulty sensor within the DEF system at roughly 65k miles.

My ordeal below: haha.

My take-away, if you can still drive it, shop around for a better price. If something actually happens to the DEF, I believe that is actually covered by their 80k emissions warranty (Although they should bend over backwards to cover preventative components).

forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=409236

I had the same issue in August but I was still under warranty.

Not sure about your area, but our nanny state insists on annual diesel emission testing. Pretty sure it would fail with the DEF CEL, so I would argue it has to be covered under the emissions warranty.

You can find my recent AdBlue heater history here, http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=413026

In Mass. and a bunch of other states they follow a more comprehensive emissions warranty based on the CA Emissions but very little additional, if any is covered. I explained that this issue would cause me to fail my state inspection for an emissions reason yet it is still not covered. I tried but could not get a parts list from VW that is covered. As you can read, I had some luck pushing back with VW Customer Care and asking them and the regional case manager to look into it. Also, make sure you shop around, you should be able to get the part in the $450 ball park. Check the details in the thread I pasted for PN, cost, etc.

mtbsteve said:

You can find my recent AdBlue heater history here, http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=413026

In Mass. and a bunch of other states they follow a more comprehensive emissions warranty based on the CA Emissions but very little additional, if any is covered. I explained that this issue would cause me to fail my state inspection for an emissions reason yet it is still not covered. I tried but could not get a parts list from VW that is covered. As you can read, I had some luck pushing back with VW Customer Care and asking them and the regional case manager to look into it. Also, make sure you shop around, you should be able to get the part in the $450 ball park. Check the details in the thread I pasted for PN, cost, etc.

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I recently looked into California's law about emission equipment warranties as well.

http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/warranty.pdf

All this says is;

"CCR §2037 Defects Warranty covers emission-related parts 3 years / 50K miles and covers high-cost emission-related parts 7 years / 70K miles*"

But it does not elaborate on what is "high-cost" and what isn't. So it's a real toss up for us in California. However, we do a regime that is "****-like" it's attempt to control emissions here. So a letter to them might be a bit more fruitful, for us, than say to the EPA.

LogicBomb said:

I recently looked into California's law about emission equipment warranties as well.
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/warranty.pdf
All this says is;
"CCR §2037 Defects Warranty covers emission-related parts 3 years / 50K miles and covers high-cost emission-related parts 7 years / 70K miles*"
But it does not elaborate on what is "high-cost" and what isn't. So it's a real toss up for us in California. However, we do a regime that is "****-like" it's attempt to control emissions here. So a letter to them might be a bit more fruitful, for us, than say to the EPA.

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Yes, very similar to what Mass. law says. After review with VW they said it wasn't covered. In the Mass. law it actually states a dollar value but without a list of actual emissions components it is hard for me to argue. VW said it is not an emissions part under the warranty context but why else does the system exist? The part is well over $300 so should be covered no questions asked.
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXVI/Chapter111/Section142K The bold emphasis below is mine.
(d) The manufacturer’s warranty for passenger vehicles certified pursuant to subsection (a) shall extend, at a minimum, for three years or fifty thousand miles for emissions related parts with a retail cost of less than three hundred dollars and seven years or seventy thousand miles for emissions related parts with a retail cost of three hundred dollars or more. The department shall periodically adjust said three hundred dollar repair level by the percentage change in the consumer price index, as published by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. For the model year nineteen hundred and ninety-three, if the motor vehicle emissions standards as specified in subsection (a) are in effect, manufacturers shall report to the department all repairs made under warranty if the number of repairs on a specific model, for a specific emissions part, exceeds four percent of the total number of the model sold. For model year nineteen hundred and ninety-four and subsequent model years, if the motor vehicle emissions standards as specified in subsection (a) are in effect, manufacturers shall report to the department all repairs made under warranty if the number of repairs on a specific model for a specific emissions part exceeds two percent of the total number of the model sold.

The AdBlue repair kit is $710 dealer retail. The control unit is $264. So I think the dealer is actually giving you a pretty good price for parts and replacement. I'd get it done and move on.

sdeck said:

Not sure about your area, but our nanny state insists on annual diesel emission testing. Pretty sure it would fail with the DEF CEL, so I would argue it has to be covered under the emissions warranty.

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You're onto something here. In past correspondence with VW that members have posted here, VW has indicated that they would fix emissions systems like AdBlue under warranty if the vehicle received an emissions test failure due to a component malfunction.

It might be worth inquiring at your local emissions station if you're trying to get this covered under the emissions warranty. Time to play a little hard ball.

After talking with the dealer the parts that they said need to be replaced 561-198-969 which looks like a repair kit and then 7n0941329 which I think is a control module. Has anyone replaced these parts personally?

Without getting hysterical about it since this forum and it's members are just a small sample size of the TDI population, the more concerning thing is that this part 561-198-969 seems to be cropping up on this and the Vortex boards more and more often under a variety of different postings with different error codes. Wish there was a way to know if VW has fixed whatever the issue is with this part rather than just sticking us with a large repair bill that could potentially come back if the part is the same design.

Well I got a call from the regional manager of VW. She said that since my passat was only 11 days out of warranty that they were going to cover 75% of the cost of the repair and that I would be responsible for the other 25%. So far I'm pretty happy with the deal which I think is fair. I just wanna say thanks to everyone who commented on this post trying to help!