It's highly unlikely that you depleted the AdBlue tank is just 1800 miles, unless there's a serious defect in the system, which then should be taken care of anyway. Still, the first thing you should obviously try is to top the tank up (for a multitude of reasons), and only proceed with looking for another fault if that doesn't help, or if the problem returns in another 1800 miles.

On the other side the AdBlue tank level sensor is known to fail quite frequently on second generation Touaregs, and if you have used sub-par fluids or always just topped up the stuff and never extracted the old one, then you might have a clogged AdBlue injector.

If the topping up is not possible or doesn't help, read the fault codes with a VAG-specific diagnostic device (VCDS, OBDeleven), or schedule an appointment at your preferred repair shop.

 

We covered this when while debating the merits of the "defeat" software and that little emission issue that VW had.

I am always amused by how quickly everyone forgets. If you are running the engine full out, then you will be running thru the def fluid extremely quickly.

To repeat, if you run the engine "full out" (which is not pratical, you can not keep a engine floored 100% of the time) the ENTIRE DEF tank will be used up in only 2000 kilometers.

^^That is not my seat of the pants opinion. That is what an AUDI engineer told the courts. Source Links below so that the non researchers can confirm.

So, using up an entire DEF tank under heavy usage in a very few miles is very possible.

That said, I would be unhappy if it happened to me.

Audi Engineer Airs The So Far Dirtiest Laundry Of The Dieselgate Scandal. Stadler Soiled

Dieselgate documents filed in German court raise the pressure on Audi CEO Stadler. Audi fires four engineers

www.forbes.com

Audi engineers tested a Volkswagen Touareg, and an Audi Q7 “with frightening results,” wrote Spiegel:

“The diesel Touareg needed eight liters of urea per 1,000 kilometers (621 miles). The intended tank had only a 16-liter capacity. A Touareg driver would have to replenish AdBlue every 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles). The engineers wanted the tank to be refilled during the scheduled service visit after 10,000 kilometers (6,210 miles).”

“Would it not be better to tell customers and regulators the truth about the emission treatment, instead of operating with dubious software programs, Weiß wanted to know. Would Volkswagen Group not be better advised to clearly state that the strict environmental limits could only be met with frequent re-fills of AdBlue? That obviously was an impossibility for a marketing department primarily focused on sales. To comply with the regulations, they argued, the tank would have to be refilled every 2,000 or 3,000 kilometers, an unreasonable burden on the customer, especially because in some cases, a dealer visit would be necessary. Honest communication could result in a serious reduction of sales, and a severe loss of face.”

 

Great article. I towed a VW Tiguan to the West coast a couple years ago, running in "full out" mode for four days straight, towing ~6200# at interstate speeds across the Plains, over the Rockies, and through Death Valley to the coast.

The mighty Touareg drank DEF like a drunk sailor, but quickly returned to its normal Post-fix range of 8000 miles before Ad Blu warning appeared.

All they needed to do was put an adblue fill near the fuel fill like the Q7, with some real way of monitoring consumption in their menu system. Had they engineered that into their software instead of their cheat code, we'd still be buying TDIs in the USA.

 

Don't you guys get free adblu top ups as part of the Dieselgate settlement?

Touareg owners in Europe haven't seen a pfennig!

 

I asked that a while back!

Don't you guys get free adblu top ups as part of the Dieselgate settlement?

Touareg owners in Europe haven't seen a pfennig!

 

Pro Tip: When trailering anything of substance for any distance, bring alomg some Ad Blu. Post-fix, it drinks it right up.

 

New song for the emission complaint engine.

One, two gulps of diesel and now a gulp of def.
One, two gulps of diesel and now a gulp of def.
One, two gulps of diesel now and a gulp of def.
One, two gulps of diesel now and a gulp of def.
One, two gulps of diesel now and a gulp of def.
One, two gulps of diesel now and a gulp of def.

 

This is normal when towing, especially under heavy loads. I went through over 20 gallons of DEF in 3-4K miles towing around 5K lbs.
DEF is meant to reduce oxides of nitrogen (NOx). Nox forms when organic materials (like fossil fuels) are burnt at high temperatures. On a Diesel engine, higher fuel ratios ('rich') increase combustion temperatures, which is the opposite of gasoline engines. So high loads tend to increase NOx output, which in turn increases DEF usage to lower NOx emissions.

 

The "problem" is that about a dozen states automatically adopt California's emissions regulations. California was granted a waiver to set their own emissions guidelines independent of the EPA because of Los Angeles. The geography, atmospheric conditions, and weather patterns in the Los Angeles basin traps pollutants near the ground instead of letting them rise higher into the sky and dissipate. That's what causes the infamous smog that L.A. is known for. As a result, emissions levels (measured at the tailpipe) which were sufficient to keep the air reasonably clean in most of the U.S., resulted in dangerously dirty air in Los Angeles. So the EPA allowed California to set its own, more strict standards.

But then a bunch of states which didn't suffer from smog decided to adopt California's emissions standards, because hey, cleaner is better, right? Resulting in the cost-vs-environment balance in those states being tipped too far in favor of the environment, and needlessly wasting money to achieve cleaner emissions than necessary for health. The air was already clean enough not to cause health standards with the EPA limits, but these states decided to require the stricter California limits. The late generation VW TDIs actually complied with the EPA's NOx emission limits (despite not using DEF). They had to be included in the nationwide recall because they exceeded California's much stricter limit.

The DPF delete does cause local pollution problems as you point out. But for the country overall, the excess pollution due to people doing the delete, is probably more than swamped out by the reduced pollution from states adopting unnecessarily strict California emissions limits. (It's worth pointing out that the stricter emissions requirements results in lower fuel mileage. So the cost of reducing NOx emissions more than necessary for health, is not just money spent on more fuel and DEF consumption, but also higher CO2 emissions. So no, cleaner is not necessarily better. The EPA limits are set to balance multiple environmental variables under consideration. Choosing to adopt California's standards is naively done using just a single variable. And choosing to delete is done ignoring the environmental consequences.)

This is normal when towing, especially under heavy loads. I went through over 20 gallons of DEF in 3-4K miles towing around 5K lbs.
DEF is meant to reduce oxides of nitrogen (NOx). Nox forms when organic materials (like fossil fuels) are burnt at high temperatures. On a Diesel engine, higher fuel ratios ('rich') increase combustion temperatures, which is the opposite of gasoline engines. So high loads tend to increase NOx output, which in turn increases DEF usage to lower NOx emissions.

If this site had stickies, this answer deserves to be stickied. NOx is created by high temperatures in the engine allowing atmospheric nitrogen to combine with atmospheric oxygen. The fuel itself doesn't provide the nitrogen nor the oxygen. So anything which causes your engine to run hotter will result in more NOx creation, and thus more DEF consumption. It's not a problem with diesel engines per se, it's just that diesel engines burn hotter than gasoline engines so produce more NOx.

The quandary of ICEs is that higher combustion temperatures also means higher efficiency. So higher efficiency and higher NOx emissions go hand in hand. Gas ICE engines are about 25% efficient (varies with speed and load). EVs charged by electricity generated from fossil fuels are about 30%-35% efficient (high efficiency at the power plant is lowered by losses from transmitting the electricity and charging the battery). Diesel cars are about 30%-40% efficient. Diesel trucks can hit 50% efficiency. And diesel locomotives and ship engines can hit 60% efficiency.

 

Towing, particularly at high elevations, drinks DEF almost as fast as a gas engine would drink gas. Do NOT expect a linear warning rate. Always carry an extra 2.5 gal DEF pak with you, especially in remote areas. You can be left stranded. The engine will NOT shut off while running even if you're at 0 miles remaining, but you will be locked out of restarting it. VagCom cannot defeat that lockout and it will need to be towed to a dealer to be reset. I have experience with this. Barely made it into Vegas after a malfunction of the fill indicators on the DEF tank.

 

Question for the group: If I don't properly reset the countdown warning (say, 400 miles) after adding DEF (say, 2.5 gal)...and it gets to zero, what wins? This is good news that the car will keep running, but what wins? The countdown clock or the fact that there is at least 2.5 gallons of DEF in the tank?

From the above comments, it sounds as if the no-start will occur despite having DEF in the tank?

Thoughts? Insights?

 

Restarting a Touareg, or any European car, with empty Adblue depends on its age, specifically its emission regulation status - a Euro 5 car is permitted to restart but Euro 6 and later aren't permitted to restart with zero Adblue - the switch over date for European market cars was August/September 2015 build.

I don't know how that relates to North American market cars but may explain when some will restart but others won't..

 

All the more reason to delete the SCR/DPF and never have to worry about a single AdBlu issue ever again.

 

That's like "deleting" your brake system to not have to replace brake pads ever again. Or deleting you headlight to not have to change the blown bulbs again. The only difference is that while the latter and its drawbacks will be obvious to anyone, a deleted DPF is a non-obvious "silent" killer, nonetheless possibly causing respiratory problems and even possibly cancer, both to the car's owner and to his passengers, and of course also to other traffic participants.

 

I towed my 3000 lb Scamp from Navarre FL to Albuquerque plus all around on the way and used about 3 gal of DEF. If you are out and about and run out of DEF between oil changes and have a Dieselgate car then the VW dealer will fill it for free as part of the agreement. I think that they may pay for towing to a dealer as well, but at my age memory is a sometimes thing and someone will jump in and expand or correct, I am sure.

 

How rude.

 

Indeed, it's very rude to poison other people, just to save a few pennies, or what's even worse: just so one can declare himself some kind of twisted, upside down "hero", who - by deleting their emission control equipment - "beat the system" and showed those pesky libertans/left-wingers/whatever what true freedom and patriotism is, and is now rolling coal.

 

For some reason, I thought about a person I knew growing up.
1. It is my god given right to dump my used motor oil where I want to.
2. The best place to dump it is in my gravel driveway to kill the weeds.
3. This Bull about it being dangerous is probably started by the * ** weed killer people, being upset that I can use something for free that works better than their overpriced product.

Well, that driveway water ran down a hill, into his garden. I will never know for certain if his cancer was linked to his driveway oil.

But I would be happier knowing that used motor oil will not in my food and knowing that excess Nox from a vehicle delete is not in my lungs.

When Catalytic converters were first introduced, we had the same sort of backlash from them.

BUT...

I understand the frustration of the Ad Blue system. It was a terrible system that often broke. VW specified and sold a heater that the urea would destroy (since fixed with updated heater). VW declared that the Ad Blue system was not part of the Emission Warranty. The software was buggy and Gen 1 could often not be reset, sometimes even the dealers had to replace and / or flash the electronics to get the countdown off of zero miles. Everything about the Ad Blue system was terrible.

It even caused a legal problem or two for the Germans.

I would like to think that the people who want to do an ad blue delete are doing it because they had a really bad experience with the Gen 1 Ad Blue system and just want to save others the hassle of "trying to polish a turd."

The updated Ad Blue system is far from perfect, but as long as you keep some extra DEF fluid on those long tow trips... You may never love it but you can co-exist with it.

To keep this response civil, I won't mention my opinion of the rolling coal crowd.

 

Let's see if we can get back on topic.

What is your worst Ad Blue fill-up?

It seems 3000 miles have happened several times. Has it happened to you?

Anyone ever have to fill up at 2000 miles or at 2500 miles?

 

Yes. I've burned through over 20 gallons of DEF on the road covering a distance of somewhere between 3K and 3.5K Miles towing around 5K lbs. Starting with a full tank, I filled twice on the trip. I can't remember how much I put in at the end, so I burned less than 30 but more than 20 gallons of DEF.
The first refill was needed between 1.5K and 1.6K miles. That segment was towing around 3K miles at the speed limit NJ to Central KS. Weight on the way back was about 5K lbs, at the speed limit. Needed to refill DEF in central PA on the way back which would have been after ~1K miles.

Anyone ever have to fill up at 2000 miles or at 2500 miles?

 

Haha... we have been on the same road at the same time. I did the trip from Indianapolis last week .. 2015 TDI.
In regards to your Adblue... as some pointed out. It depends on fuel consumption but less than 1800 miles even with a trailer seems to short. Refill it and have the sensor checked.

 

Thank you for this, I'm going to be pulling a Rockwood as well later this year and it was a valuable tip to know I needed to top off and carry extra AdBlu.

 

I think that when one takes a look at the pollution data and finds that an ALH Jetta produces something like 100x more NOx than a Touareg it's difficult to justify spending thousands out of warranty to keep the system running. Especially if you live in an area that doesn't have NOx issues. I've got a 2002 Duramax without any sort of emissions equipment on it (I didn't remove it, back in 2002 they just didn't have to put anything on it), it must produce 1000x what a Touareg does.

I like the idea of clean air and a happy to keep the system but it's a tough call to pour money into it, especially if its poorly designed. It seems totally plausible that the money spent on a urea system could achieve much greater benefits being used elsewhere.

 

I think that when one takes a look at the pollution data and finds that an ALH Jetta produces something like 100x more NOx than a Touareg it's difficult to justify spending thousands out of warranty to keep the system running.

I think that's backwards thinking. If you're bothered by the fact that both cars with higher and lower emissions are allowed on the road, then the right approach and the way forward would be to ban the cars with higher emission and only allow cars with lower emission to be driven.

Now, I'm absolutely not saying this is what should be done, because it's not evident that it would be more environmentally friendly to throw away an otherwise still working car with higher emission, and manufacture a new one with lower emissions instead, because the net sum of the resulting environmental impact (and even strictly speaking the resulting net sum of emission) might and most likely will be a lot higher, because of the wasted car and the extra car manufactured. Just that the right way to handle the situation is definitely NOT to allow (and especially not deliberately modify) a car that's also capable of lower emission to emit more pollutants, just because there are also other, older cars on the road, that are not capable to lower their emissions.

Especially if you live in an area that doesn't have NOx issues.

Every place where a car is driven has NOx issues. The NOx and soot emissions and the EGR and DPF delete are so problematic, because (unlike for ex. CO2, which is a passive gas that has no direct health impact on humans, unless it completely displaces oxygen, and can only hurt us on the global scale, through climate change), NOx and soot exert their effects primarily locally. They harm the health of people sitting in, standing next to, or walking past the car that's emitting them. And they do that directly, essentially poisoning them, us.

That's also the reason why even though it's not ideal that for ex. ships or planes do not have the same emissions reducing equipment like cars or trucks do, but if we have to choose between these, then reducing the latter (ie. the emissions of cars and trucks) still should take precedence over the former, because the emissions of planes and ships get distributed and mostly neutralized one way or the other before they could be actually breathed in by any humans, while we (as humans) are directly and concentratedly exposed to the emissions of cars and trucks, because they're driven mostly in our direct vicinity, in the cities and near our houses.

Of course ideally all emissions should be reduced to the minimum, but as already pointed out above, it's not only not economically feasible to do that, but if rushed, it might be actually counterproductive and raise the total sum of emissions. Which, however, does not hold true for deliberate deletes of emission reducing systems, and for when one fails to maintain and replace part of these to keep the factory system in working order.

 

Last year I went to a race track in Colorado outside of Denver from Omaha. This is a 1000 mile round trip. On the way home, after about 700 miles, I got the 1000 mile warning. 30 miles later, I got the 500 mile warning! This is towing a 6800# enclosed trailer and yes, the DEF tank was topped off at the beginning of the trip. My longest tow this year was 860 miles with the same trailer to St Louis and afterwards I put in 4 gallons. I suspect the difference is the lack of elevation change and lower average speed. I did get the 23AK service action done earlier this year, so that may also be a factor.
My last trip was only 320 miles and I put in less than 2 gallons. One of the things I did observe though was my temp gauge would fluctuate quite rapidly at times going from its normal 200 to 230. After observing that several times, I believe that is when it is going through its regen process. As soon as it's done, temps go right back to 200 and stay there. The temp spike was not due to load, since it would do this on the flats too. One thing I did one the way home, was to drive 5 mph slower and the frequency between regens was longer. Fuel economy also improved on the way home.

 

For those who have done the DPF delete, what benefits have you found from the delete (aside from adblue and component problems)? increased performance? mileage increase?

 

We covered this all before in the emissions debate.

With a DEF Delete, the difference you will see in engine performance and mileage is zero, none, zlich, zip. WHY you ask?

Because all we are doing is spraying def fluid into the exhaust. The urea chemically combines with the NOx in the exhaust system. We do not alter the fuel timing, we do not change any engine parameter. With def, no engine parameters have to be changed. You just compute the amount of NOx that should be in the exhaust and you spray in enough def to chemically react and break down the NOx.

BULL you say. The engine runs a lot different now. TRUE, but the def was not the only emission problem and it was not the only thing that the emission update works on. Think about it this way. If the only thing we were doing was getting rid of NOx, why did we alter the transmission shift points? It would not make sense.

So, if you remove the def, the only thing that will happen is you will spew more NOx into the air. You will not affect the other emissions fixes. It will not change the way the engine warmup is different. It will not change that the transmission shifts are different. It will not change the way the throttle acts differently.

Since the only deal killer problems with the Def system was the expensive heater failing (fixed with updated part) and the electronics/software failing and putting you into the no def-no start problem (now fixed)...

What does anyone think they are going to get by doing a Def delete on a working system? The only things you will get is (1) you don't have to add def fluid and (2) more NOx.

ONCE again, when the def is working, the only physical thing that the driver should be able to tell with normal human senses is that the def fluid has to be refilled.

Now people keep saying that they will delete it to prevent it from breaking down. 100% silly as long as it is under VW emission warranty. The danger that VW can, will (and should) legally refuse to fix any and all problems covered under the emission warranty if you do a def delete is far worse then the fear that some def part might break under that warranty. If it does break, it is on VW to fix it.

Now, after the warranty is over, we can talk about what to do if you are facing an expensive def repair. But, at this point in time, it is pointless.

 

You're asking the wrong persons there, because whoever has done a delete will tend to observe benefits even when/where there are none, or actually the opposite is true. See cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias! If you want to get reliable information, look for scientific studies about the topic instead! And they will mostly tell you, that if the exhaust system was properly sized in the first place, then anything that changes the flow rate/diameter in it will mostly have negative effects on its efficiency and thus also on performance. Not that if there would be some actual marginal benefits, then that would be a good enough excuse to start deliberately poisoning others or the environment for that matter. Just saying.

 

I think we can agree that the automakers have had to build vehicles and their emissions systems based heavily on California's ARB rules. This has lead to vehicles being clean enough to meet (or at least come close) to the pollution standards for some of the worse air quality basins in the country. To say that NOx is as much of an issue in places like Los Angeles and Denver as it is in any number of smaller towns is doubtful, at best. As such, a DPF delete done in rural America isn't causing harm nearly to the extent that a DPF delete in a dense city is.

This is where politics come into play. How come I can wipe the exhaust pipe of my Touareg with a white cloth and see nothing but give that a try on any modern DI gasoline engine and you come away with a sooty black mess. Well, thats because somewhere along the line the EPA decided that PM10 deserves a DPF and PM2.5 doesn't. Doesn't make much sense to me...Just like a lot of the rest of this stuff. It seems that diesels have been getting the shaft for a long time in this country for not many good reasons.

 

Yes we get free adblue as part of the settlement. Any time its low just swing by the dealer. Oil changes they top it off too.

 

I had mine in for the AK service and asked for Ad-Blue fill up. They didn't know about it, didn't do it, wouldn't do it when I asked as I picked it up. VW dealers SUCK. It's just easier to do it on my own.

 

My Volkswagen dealer has been top notch in every way for me. Just bring in the official memo and then thank them for their time for filling your DEF.

 

Everyone should get a copy of that memo and keep it in the glove box. That way when you a find a dealer that does not know about it, you show them the memo. The dealer can quickly verify it with VW. The dealer will also find out the VW will give them some small warranty reimbursement money for the refill.