BubbaWilkins
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This is not necessarily a new issue, but I hadn't seen anything about it until it happened to us and starting looking.
Def freezes at 12deg's (ish). There's a heater in there, so it will eventually be thawed while running. BUT, If your Def tank freezers, it might cause the def tank gauge to start acting squirrelly.
What happened to us: 3000 mile trip to/from Montana to hunt elk. Temps during the week where we were at were in low single digits, with a brief period of below zero temps. At the time, def tank was registering 3/8's of a tank. Temps didn't climb above 20deg's until several days later when we were on the return leg home. Def gauge was reading a quarter tank after some time on the road so we stopped to fill both it and the diesel tanks. Def gauge did not register the additional fluid added (7.5 gallons, Chassis Cab). Gauge continued to fall and issued the 200 mile until limp mode warning. Given we were already several hundred miles into the day, we called ahead to a couple of dealers in Nebraska and one of them was able to get us in. Tech did a couple of updates to the computer and temporarily plugged in a spare def gauge/pump assembly. None of that appeared to register any change, but then he plugged the original back in and took it around the block and the gauge reverted to normal operation. Overall, we lost an hour or so with the truck in the tech's hands, but still made good time on the road and weren't really delayed much.
I've read some stories of far worse, but turned out to be a simple fix for us. I will be looking into an external jacket heater for the def tank to avoid this problem in the future.
Def freezes at 12deg's (ish). There's a heater in there, so it will eventually be thawed while running. BUT, If your Def tank freezers, it might cause the def tank gauge to start acting squirrelly.
What happened to us: 3000 mile trip to/from Montana to hunt elk. Temps during the week where we were at were in low single digits, with a brief period of below zero temps. At the time, def tank was registering 3/8's of a tank. Temps didn't climb above 20deg's until several days later when we were on the return leg home. Def gauge was reading a quarter tank after some time on the road so we stopped to fill both it and the diesel tanks. Def gauge did not register the additional fluid added (7.5 gallons, Chassis Cab). Gauge continued to fall and issued the 200 mile until limp mode warning. Given we were already several hundred miles into the day, we called ahead to a couple of dealers in Nebraska and one of them was able to get us in. Tech did a couple of updates to the computer and temporarily plugged in a spare def gauge/pump assembly. None of that appeared to register any change, but then he plugged the original back in and took it around the block and the gauge reverted to normal operation. Overall, we lost an hour or so with the truck in the tech's hands, but still made good time on the road and weren't really delayed much.
I've read some stories of far worse, but turned out to be a simple fix for us. I will be looking into an external jacket heater for the def tank to avoid this problem in the future.
