DeNOx Catalyst on Backorder... GRRR

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Nate_Grauvogel

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Location
CO
TDI
'15 T-Reg Exec
/vent

My '15 Touareg TDI has been in my local VW shop since June 15th... at the end of May, it threw the "AdBlue System Fault; 200 miles remaining until no restart" error message in the dash panel. It is very much still under the extended emissions warranty, so rather than investigate myself, I figured I'd let my local dealer sort it out for free while I enjoyed putting miles on a loaner. At first they thought they'd have it in and out in a day, so no loaner at first (none available!), until the tech scanned it and went to the tech line for advice... they insist it needs a new DeNOx cat, which is...drumroll...on back order with no ETA in the system.

After pointing out the pitfalls in their original proposal to reset the SCR lock every 200 miles for me while they waited for parts, they saw the folly of that approach and magically "found" a loaner for me the same day.

I'm now on my second loaner Tiguan with no end in sight. At first, the novelty of the 2021 R Tiguan they gave me was neat, but now on my second, a 2022 Tiguan S, this loaner thing is getting old.

Anyone else stuck in a similar predicament?

P.S. And they asked me to please not unwrap or use the monster mats or cargo blocks in the loaners..."those are for sales to use when they sell the car." You'd think they'd want me using the mats to keep the carpets clean, but whatever.

/vent off
 
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Nate_Grauvogel

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Location
CO
TDI
'15 T-Reg Exec
Update:

So this morning I got a message that the long-awaited catalyst is in, and they'll likely have my car done next week (two techs out this week, and one out next week, etc.)

I tell the writer great, and OK, no problem, relieved that I'm getting my ride back soon enough. ...Just please make sure that before they give it back, that all the emissions readiness bits are set, and to ensure it passes. (I live in an emissions county and can't renew the plates -- which expired 45 days after I gave it to them to fix -- until it has a passing OBD-II check in the system.)

...

Leaving the office later today, I see I have 2 missed calls and 2 voicemails about 30 minutes apart with a text in between... the first one was gold. "Sir, I put a tech on your car today, and it's done and ready for you. You can pick it up today or any time tomorrow. The original tech who ordered all the parts wasn't available, and the one we assigned to it re-did all the diagnostics and determined that only one NOx sensor was faulty. We didn't need to keep your car for 2 and a half months, after all!"

The text and second message was "We'd like your permission to drive the car far enough to ensure that all the emissions readiness bits are set and it passes before we give it back to you. That could be up to 250 miles of driving, and of course we'll top off any fuel we use."

...

Rather than yell at the poor guy, who was clearly embarrassed, I called him back and told him "please do drive it all that way with expired tags and give it back to me with a passing emissions check!" Chatting with him a bit, he told me that it was quite the conversation that happened in the shop once the second tech fixed it in hours and one part. I bit my tongue hard to keep from blurting out "I F-ing could have told you to double-check the sesnors first!"

I'd be pissed to no end if I'd not had a loaner the whole time, or had had to cancel a towing-involved trip because of their tech's dumbfuc&ery.

Somebody is in for a long joyride...
 
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Tom_B

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2004
Location
Central Oklahoma
TDI
15 Touareg, 14 A6
We had a Tiguan loaner for 5 months while dealer worked through warranty covered issues with our Touareg. It was a decent vehicle but we were glad to get the Treg back.
 
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Nate_Grauvogel

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Location
CO
TDI
'15 T-Reg Exec
The saga is now complete... got my TReg back last Monday. In the final analysis, it only needed a new post-SCR sensor. By the time they figured that out, the registration had been expired for over 30 days, so I had them drive it until it passed emissions... took ~1700 miles!!

While they were in there, they performed recall 23AK, which "...will correct an issue that is causing the “check engine” light to falsely illuminate under certain driving conditions, which has resulted in replacement of the diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) for certain customers... " !!


Great to have my car back... ordered vanity plates for it, then took it on a short overnight road trip over the weekend, and was so happy to have it. Only thing I miss over the Tiguan loaners I had is not having Android Auto built in, but that can be remedied.
 
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Capt.Aidan

Active member
Joined
Nov 21, 2021
Location
Greater Toronto Area
TDI
2015 Touareg 3.0 TDI Exec
Sounds very similar to my experience at the dealer with my '15 Treg. Had multiple front and rear NOX sensors as well as the NOX catalyst replaced under warranty, with the same fault codes appearing each time I got the adblue shutoff countdown l. It seems that VW has a very tough time diagnosing what is actually the issue when NOX fault codes are triggered.

Id be curious to see what faults your car threw, if the dealer put them on your service records. Mine consistently got P229F, P204F, P20EE, P207F.

Private mechanic ended up swapping the clamp for the adblue injector as the threads were worn/stripped, and I've been okay since.
 
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