P2080: Exhaust Gas Temperature Sensor Circuit Range/Performance — Bank 1 Sensor 1
What to do
Not felt from the driver's seat, but not cosmetic: this sensor supervises filter regeneration, and a drifting one either overheats the filter or blocks it, depending on the direction. Worth fixing promptly on any diesel with a particulate filter.
What this code means
The first exhaust temperature sensor's reading is electrically alive but implausible — and on this sensor family, implausible has a characteristic direction with an expensive consequence.
Exhaust temperature sensors age by drifting low. The sensing element deteriorates in the heat it measures, and a drifted sensor under-reports — which matters because these sensors govern the hottest deliberate event the vehicle stages. Particulate filter regeneration is controlled to a target temperature read from exactly this family: a sensor reading sixty degrees low invites the module to add sixty degrees more, and the P2428 fire-risk page describes where that ends. Drift in the other direction is cheaper but self-defeating — an over-reading sensor makes the module abort regenerations that were fine, which is the P2031 route to a blocked filter.
The plausibility check that catches it is elegant and free: before a cold start, every exhaust sensor should agree with ambient. One reading forty degrees adrift of its cold siblings has convicted itself. The base, low and high circuit codes for this sensor live at P0544–P0546; this variant is the drift-catcher.
Likely causes
Start here
- Sensor drifted out of calibration · moderate
- Faulty exhaust gas temperature sensor · moderate
Less common
- Exhaust heat damage to sensor harness · moderate
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
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Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
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