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I brought my Touareg in for repair, it came back and the engine light went on almost right away

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mactac

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Discussion starter · #1 · (Edited)
I brought my 2014 TDI Touareg in to be checked (oil leak and front brakes). They didn't fix the oil leak because they told me it would be too expensive.

They also added DEF because they said it was really low (which I knew). But they also mentioned something about putting some water in there too for some reason. I didn't press on that because we were talking about the oil leak.

About 5-10KM after leaving the repair shop, the engine light came on.

I brought it back and they said that there were some sensors flagged, including the nox sensor. They reset the flags, but the engine light came back on after about 2 days.

I'm told that it's going to likely be quite expensive to fix (just the nox sensor is around $900 CDN).

I'm sitting here thinking about it and remembered the thing about them adding water, and it's making me wonder if they added tapwater to the DEF, could it cause all of this? I've seen a few warnings about using regular water.

It sure seemed like a coincidence that the engine light came on pretty much right away.

I was thinking about trying to drain the DEF (though not sure where to do this) and replacing it. But if the sensors are flagged, does that necessarily mean that they are bad (permanently), or could this help?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Discussion starter · #5 ·
SaVAGeSoot said:
Who is "they"?
You don't add water to DEF. The addition of water screwed things up.... even things that weren't screwed up previously.
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"They" is the shop that I brought the vehicle in for the new brakes and diagnosing of the oil leak.

Can you expand on how the water could have messed up the sensors? I need to be specific with them since I'm sure they will deny that it could have caused a problem.
 
#7 ·
If you took it to the “shop” for brakes, why did they even touch your adblue?
Touaregs are special. Even adding wrong windshield washer fluid (rain-x for example) can destroy those sensors. Seems your chosen “shop” really messed up.
 
Discussion starter · #8 ·
Viking Lady said:
If you took it to the “shop” for brakes, why did they even touch your adblue?
Touaregs are special. Even adding wrong windshield washer fluid (rain-x for example) can destroy those sensors. Seems your chosen “shop” really messed up.
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Honestly I don't know. I think they just saw it low and added DEF... plus water for some reason.
 
Discussion starter · #11 ·
SaVAGeSoot said:
Read the owner's manual.
View attachment 258105
Click to expand...
I did, and saw the warnings (I referred to the warnings I read in my OP). I was looking for specifics - exactly what happens when you add water that damages the sensors. As I said, they will deny that it's a problem, I need to be specific as to why this would have happened.
 
#13 ·
mactac said:
and I'm in the dark with being able to push back other than "it says in the manual"
Click to expand...
That's plenty of justification!
If I were to fill up your tank with gasoline instead of diesel, would you need to give me a super technical breakdown of how the two fuels are chemically different, have different properties, combust differently, different lubrication, talk about compression ratios, stoichiometric values, how the injectors and pump would crap out, etc. in order to "tell me" that I messed up your vehicle? :rolleyes:
 
Discussion starter · #14 ·
SaVAGeSoot said:
That's plenty of justification!
If I were to fill up your tank with gasoline instead of diesel, would you need to give me a super technical breakdown of how the two fuels are chemically different, have different properties, combust differently, different lubrication, talk about compression ratios, stoichiometric values, how the injectors and pump would crap out, etc. in order to "tell me" that I messed up your vehicle? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I'm just looking for some help in approaching this with them - as I said they will use the excuse that adblue is mostly water already, and tell me to go away. I'm trying to arm myself to get a (very slim) chance that they will take responsibility for it, not roll my eyes at them.

As you can imagine, they will fight HARD to not pay for this. If I can explain to the exactly now the NOX sensor will get damaged from ionized water, it might help. Basically I need some credibility with them to be able to argue.

I don't want to argue as to whether or not knowledge will help me in my argument, thats not really helpful.
 
#15 ·
mactac said:
I'm just looking for some help in approaching this with them
Click to expand...
was this a dealer or a random shop? is this thing still under dieselgate warranty?

adding water to DEF :D my god... this is the kind of kooky stuff i thought we'd gotten past by 2011-ish. wild

mactac said:
If I can explain to the exactly now the NOX sensor will get damaged from ionized water
Click to expand...
it wont necessarily be damaged. itll likely pop a lot of conversion efficiency related faults.

anyway, it seems from reading between the lines this may not have been a dealer. if its still under warranty id take it to a dealer and let them sort it via the dieselgate warranty.
and then id light that shop up on google reviews or yelp or whatever. morons.
 
Discussion starter · #16 ·
ValveCoverGasket said:
was this a dealer or a random shop? is this thing still under dieselgate warranty?

adding water to DEF :D my god... this is the kind of kooky stuff i thought we'd gotten past by 2011-ish. wild
Click to expand...
It was a shop that specializes in VW. It's 1000KM out of the dieselgate warranty. I actually called VW to see if there was anythign they could do since it was so close to warranty expiration, and they basically told me to get lost.
 
#17 ·
do you have an invoice or work order? itd be interesting to see what they actually wrote down...

DEF tanks get contaminated all the time - because idiots in the field usually do idiot things like fill them with all sorts of stuff that isnt DEF. its less common at a shop these days though :D :D and even less common now that these systems have been everywhere for over a decade.

step one is drain the tank.
 
Discussion starter · #19 ·
ValveCoverGasket said:
do you have an invoice or work order? itd be interesting to see what they actually wrote down...

DEF tanks get contaminated all the time - because idiots in the field usually do idiot things like fill them with all sorts of stuff that isnt DEF. its less common at a shop these days though :D :D and even less common now that these systems have been everywhere for over a decade.

step one is drain the tank.
Click to expand...
Do you know where the drain plug is for it? I looked but could not see anything. I also looked online without any luck.
 
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