Alhambra adblue warning

[ajf3011]

Thanks for the update Richard - one question, where did you get your Adblue from and how much was it? Ta.

Just for info Adblue is available at pretty much all motorway services and the majority of larger petrol stations, either in drums or via a pump (usually by the HGV diesel pumps).
Prices are usually £10-15 for a 10 litre drum or around 80p per litre via the pump.
Air1 are the official makers of Adblue and if you have a smartphone they have an app giving locations of Adblue stockists.

I've been driving trucks with Adblue since about 2007, the majority of trucks and coaches now require Adblue so it's readily available and not something that needs a special trip to a main dealer to buy.

 

[maghlg]

Ad-blue warning

Hi, I am looking for some advice following a problem I have just had whilst in France towing a caravan. The ad-blue warning light came on & said I had 1500 miles before the engine would not restart. Knowing that this may happen, IN the UK I had purchased from SEAT one of their spare bottles of Ad-Blue (about 1.8 Ltrs) for this type of emergency. After filling with this spare bottle, the warning remained the same & after only driving about a further 200 miles, it said that engine will not restart...& it didn't.....now stranded in France with a caravan & 4 kids in tow. The recovery team took me to a garage where I purchased a further 5 ltrs of Ab-blue & also added this.....so now I have added nearly 7 ltrs to the tank (about 40% of it's full capacity I believe).....the warning remained & the car would not start . The recovery team took the car to their garage, but they didn't have the software to reset the warning, so took it to the local VW garage.....they said the car was too new & they also didn't have the software to do it.....it's a 61 plate....not that new (3 d***dy years old). So time was ticking on & it's was now 16:30 on a Friday afternoon in Calais with no SEAT dealer that would be able to look at the car now until next Monday......needing to get the family back to the UK, we left the car & caravan in France, only to have to return next week to pick it up

So my questions are:

Why do SEAT supply spare bottles of Ad-blue & you can also by the 5 ltrs bottles for VW,Audi, Mercedes etc from service stations if it actually makes no difference to the sensor status & therefore still thinking it is running out?...seems absolutely pointless to me.

Is this the normal way the warning system works & needs to be dealer reset even if you top it up?

Shouldn't it recover itself it the ad-blue tank is actively monitored? Wouldn't that be the clever solution to it?

I'm thinking that if the consumption of Ad-blue is soooooo high when towing a caravan, then this is a pretty poor tow car.....if anyone else got any experience towing a caravan with one, if would be great to hear your views.

Hoping someone may have so advice.

Thanks

 

[JoeleonFR]

Hello - to cut a long story short the vehicle will require a Nox Adblue control unit.

Take it into a dealer ASAP and if you have full service history with a SEAT dealer then SEAT UK may offer a goodwill contribution.

Joe - Crewe SEAT

 

[maghlg]

Hi Joe, thanks for the reply. As I thought....it was not going to be a simple reset of the computer. Does that mean that it currently doesn't have one or the current one is defective. The car has a full service history, but is now 4 years old so out of warrantly.

What you have said sort of makes sense that something was defective; about a year ago the car came up with ad-blue "error" not "low" a few times & stated top up in 20K miles.....Does that make any sense? I took it to the dealership in Wolverhampton & the engineer dismissed it & just said it needed topping up, which made no sense....I even showed them a photo on the error, but they didn't listen...was this an early sign of failure & therefore it should be honored under the warranty as they incorrectly diagnosed it

As it happens SEAT in Crewe is my closest one.......is this something you may be able to help with if I contact you directly as Wolverhampton SEAT weren't helpful.

Thanks again for the advice

 

[JoeleonFR]

Good evening,

I'm more than happy to help! Pop your contact details and send them
To me [email protected] and I will phone you tomorrow when's best and I aim to get this sorted for you!

Joe

 

[Fmxvxx]

The adblue warning wont reset until you put atleast 10 litres of adblue into the vehicle if the tank is run dry it will need bleeding.

 

[Gerico1000]

Hi, I am looking for some advice following a problem I have just had whilst in France towing a caravan. The ad-blue warning light came on & said I had 1500 miles before the engine would not restart. Knowing that this may happen, IN the UK I had purchased from SEAT one of their spare bottles of Ad-Blue (about 1.8 Ltrs) for this type of emergency. After filling with this spare bottle, the warning remained the same & after only driving about a further 200 miles, it said that engine will not restart...& it didn't.....now stranded in France with a caravan & 4 kids in tow. The recovery team took me to a garage where I purchased a further 5 ltrs of Ab-blue & also added this.....so now I have added nearly 7 ltrs to the tank (about 40% of it's full capacity I believe).....the warning remained & the car would not start . The recovery team took the car to their garage, but they didn't have the software to reset the warning, so took it to the local VW garage.....they said the car was too new & they also didn't have the software to do it.....it's a 61 plate....not that new (3 d***dy years old). So time was ticking on & it's was now 16:30 on a Friday afternoon in Calais with no SEAT dealer that would be able to look at the car now until next Monday......needing to get the family back to the UK, we left the car & caravan in France, only to have to return next week to pick it up

So my questions are:

Why do SEAT supply spare bottles of Ad-blue & you can also by the 5 ltrs bottles for VW,Audi, Mercedes etc from service stations if it actually makes no difference to the sensor status & therefore still thinking it is running out?...seems absolutely pointless to me.

Is this the normal way the warning system works & needs to be dealer reset even if you top it up?

Shouldn't it recover itself it the ad-blue tank is actively monitored? Wouldn't that be the clever solution to it?

I'm thinking that if the consumption of Ad-blue is soooooo high when towing a caravan, then this is a pretty poor tow car.....if anyone else got any experience towing a caravan with one, if would be great to hear your views.

Hoping someone may have so advice.

Thanks

I really don't wish to sound unsympathetic but I don't understand why people take a couple of litres abroad 'just in case'. I to had a long trip through France to do with my mileage approaching 12,000 and guessed I'd need some adblue 'just in case'.

I figured I could fill the tank easily enough at a petrol station abroad but still wanted piece of mind. So I read the manual it clearly states you need to top up with at least 10 litres. So I took one 5 litre and three 1.8 litres. 10.4 litres in total and easier to split up and pack with in the car.

Typical the warning didn't show until two weeks after getting home. I sweet talked my local VW place and managed to get two of the 1.8's refunded and got another 5 litre. Added all 11.8 litres and everything went fine. No idea how full the tank is but when the warning comes on again I'll do the same.

Only then will I be able to get a reasonably accurate consumption figure. I reckon it is around a litre per 1000 miles which is mainly cruising with and without a caravan and short commutes during the week.

Good luck with it all anyway and please let us know how it all works out.

 

[Sue2010]

My Alhambra is 2011 and my adblue light came on at approximately 40k in September. Added 10L and reset everything- wonderful! Today at 42500 the light came back on and then the engine management light has also come on; informing me I have 700 miles before my start/stop doesn't work.
Joe from Crewe said in an earlier post to take it to the dealer and if you have main dealer service history they'll do this as goodwill. My question is this .... I have full service history, always genuine parts but at a independent garage - will it be covered? And what about the Seat letter I have informing me of my affected engine - this is all related but do I have to again pay out for this adblue for another 2/3000 miles ? Surely something needs to be done much quicker for this problem?

 

[Earl]

Wow this AdBlue problem is getting old! I have been having the chronic return of the 'Engine will not start in (fill in the blank) kilometers for 4 months now. The service shop I am sure is very tired of seeing me drive up, but they are patient and persistent luckily. They have replaced the control unit and pump and reset the warnings. They have taken it to Seat-VW for a software update and further examination. Still no luck. After 5 or 10 kilometers the warning always come back. Luilyy they have been able to reset the thing well enough that I can drive again, but in the summer I will have to take a long vacation drive. I have searched and searched but still have found nobody who has had a definitive answer for what is going on here. HAS ANYONE succeeded in fixing this? Maybe I need to find a hacker. Good thing it is a company car.

 

[Earl]

One thing the mechanic found was a gasket in the adblue pump which was slipped out of place. I think he said it was adjacent to a heating element (?).He reset the gasket and thought that was going to fix it. At the moment he has the car and is trying AGAIN to fix it. Has anyone else encountered a gasket problem?

 

[lucy_t]

OK I have had the ad blue warning, I topped up 12 months ago and no issues from that. However I now have a new warning - 9656-P202B - Reductant Tank Heater Control Circuit Low. There are faults I can find on the internet where the heater circuit has failed and then the adblue tank needs replacing at £1K+ costs. Going to france at half term, its not stopping the car, so should I get the dealer to rip me off and fix it out of warranty or wait till I come back and see what I can get fixed with a local garage?

 

[Danny12]

Well I had hoped not to have to post in this thread again.
After only 9 months the nox sensor has failed again. I got the 650 miles to go message and the engine is now in countdown to shutting off. I'll phone the dealer this morning but it looks like another £600 repair bill for a part not even a year old,that should not have failed in the first place.
The last time SEAT HQ washed their hands off it saying they were not aware there was an issue with the nox sensor on the SEAT,

 

[benhella]

Will the part not have a warrenty if it was done at a dealers its normally 1-2 years

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[benhella]

"You and your SEAT deserve the best. We offer a range of fixed price servicing options to suit your budget, so you’ll have complete visibility of your expenditure before you book. Your SEAT dealer will only use approved SEAT parts fitted by our expert technicians and with a two year parts warranty and additional free vehicle checks such as vehicle software updates and a free valet service, that’s one less thing to worry about."

http://www.seat.co.uk/owners/your-seat/overview.html

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[Danny12]

I'll find out shortly. The dealer has been good but I suppose it will be up to SEAT at the end of the day and their attitude is that this is not a problem.Hopefully I'll be proved wrong.

 

[Danny12]

Phoned the local dealer and arranged to drop it off and they would look at it. However the warning lights and countdown then turned off and everything went back to normal. Spoke to the dealer and they said it was unlikely anything would show up in diagnostics as the system has now reset.
The Alhambra is a great car it is just so frustrating that SEAT / VAG refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem with this part.
It does look like the part is covered by warranty so when the light does come on again it'll be back to the dealer.

 

[Gerico1000]

I really don't wish to sound unsympathetic but I don't understand why people take a couple of litres abroad 'just in case'. I to had a long trip through France to do with my mileage approaching 12,000 and guessed I'd need some adblue 'just in case'.

I figured I could fill the tank easily enough at a petrol station abroad but still wanted piece of mind. So I read the manual it clearly states you need to top up with at least 10 litres. So I took one 5 litre and three 1.8 litres. 10.4 litres in total and easier to split up and pack with in the car.

Typical the warning didn't show until two weeks after getting home. I sweet talked my local VW place and managed to get two of the 1.8's refunded and got another 5 litre. Added all 11.8 litres and everything went fine. No idea how full the tank is but when the warning comes on again I'll do the same.

Only then will I be able to get a reasonably accurate consumption figure. I reckon it is around a litre per 1000 miles which is mainly cruising with and without a caravan and short commutes during the week.

Good luck with it all anyway and please let us know how it all works out.

So pretty much 14,000 miles later!

1500 warning light comes on, picked up 1 x 10 ltr (apparently don't do the 5's anymore) and a 1.8 ltr from a VW garage. Convenient location otherwise I've never used them before. Can't remember how much but it was less than £20. Topped up this morning, all okay, everything seems to have reset properly.

I'm guessing the next fill will be at 42,000 miles (ish). If I still have the car I might attempt to fill the tank rather than put in 11.8 ltrs. The bottles look like you can part empty them without issue. Time will tell?