P2ACE: Reductant Temperature Sensor B Circuit Low
What to do
Do not ignore this one. AdBlue faults are subject to a legally mandated countdown: the car will reduce power and eventually refuse to restart, and the dashboard will tell you how many miles remain. It is drivable now and it will not stay that way.
What this code means
The circuit for the second reductant temperature sensor is faulty.
Reductant is AdBlue — a urea solution injected into the exhaust to convert NOx — and its temperature is measured because the fluid freezes at a temperature the car will routinely meet.
AdBlue freezes at about −11 °C, which is an ordinary winter night across most of Europe and North America. A frozen tank cannot be dosed, so the system carries heaters and needs to know when to use them and when dosing may safely resume.
The design accommodates freezing rather than preventing it. The tank is built so that expanding ice does not damage it, and the car is permitted to run without dosing while thawing — which is why a cold-start delay before dosing begins is normal behaviour and not a fault.
Temperature also matters for a second reason nobody expects: dosing quantity depends on concentration, and concentration is read from the fluid's properties, which vary with temperature. So a wrong temperature produces a wrong dose rather than no dose.
The consequence of an unresolved fault is the one that gets attention. Emissions legislation requires the car to enforce the aftertreatment system: a persistent reductant fault leads to reduced power and ultimately a refusal to restart, on a legally mandated countdown that a warning message will state explicitly.
At or below the lower limit, usually a short to earth or a lost supply.
Likely causes
Start here
- Faulty reductant temperature sensor · specialist
- Corroded or loose connector · specialist
- Open circuit in sensor wiring · specialist
Less common
- Damaged wiring harness · specialist
- Failed sensor reference voltage supply · specialist
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
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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