Thank you sirCertified DEF is 33% urea, 67% water. As it ages or gets contaminated, it's potency drops. When it drops to 22% urea you will get an alarm (2016+ trucks). If it's not a DEF condition problem, it could be a clogged injector or pump, etc. Good that you have the dealer looking at it.
Looks like you stumbled on to a great band-aid for the dreaded DEF message. Thanks for sharing and hoping it keeps you operational.Well i ran into the 'Truck will not start in XXkm, see dealer' .
I really did not want to take truck to dealer because it is always a $500 bill even when they do not do anything.
I had the P05ED - Reductant Heater Control Module Supply Voltage, and P2BA9 - NOx Exceedence - Insufficient Reagent Quality.
I ran it down to 50km before i gave in and took to dealer. They called me after an hour of service and needed a couple more hours to chase the wires and try to find problem. Never did really find the exact cause but said i need to spend $6,500 to replace DPF cause it is cracked, Need to replace DEF Heater Control Module and wire harness too. To boot, they can't get parts for over a month!!
I told them to just leave truck and i will come get it. That was yesterday. And bill was $450 for doing nothing!!!!
Truck has a legal GDE tune on it that i reflash to original before taking to dealer.
As soon as i got home i went online and bought a delete tune and DPF delete exhaust pipe. Should be here next week sometime.
So now i have this legal non delete tune from GDE that i don't need.
Anyway, after i got truck home i only have 19km before it will not start. Pisses me off, the mechanic said truck will be a paper weight if i go past the set km. FAK!
So i get my ALFAobd hooked up to truck and was looking through all the settings... Well shit there is a setting that is under engine, start procedure is 'Write Odometer' . I think to myself 'can i backup the odometer so truck has less km?' Thats not what it does but i have 138,648 km on truck and only 19km more till it wont start. So i write the odometer to 138,400 i think it was. This does not actually change the km on the odometer because the odometer still reads 138,648 km, but when I restart the truck low and behold i now have 220km before it will not start. So i figure if i can go back that far why not go even farther. I went back and wrote the odometer to 138,000km so should have 650 km before will not start right? Nope i restart truck and the 'will not start message is gone'!!!
I figured i better take truck on a 25km trip and bring it back to my garage in case it will not start still after 19km.
Go for a 22km ride and bring it back home, shut it off. Now heart was beating a bit in case damn thing wouldn't start but shit it fired right up and still no 'see dealer in XXkm or truck won't start' message.
Now i can at least drive the damn truck till the delete tune gets here!!
I probably won't go too far from home and leave it running if i stop any where till i am sure that it will keep starting but for now it seems like a temporary fix.
Hopefully i won't do any damage to truck but i am some what happy that i can give the dealership a big middle finger.