BMW Diesel DEF tanks

[red-beard]

Mrs. Beard came back from lunch and declared "The check engine light is on again!". This was followed by a lot of words, maybe whining and complaining about BMW, I didn't really listen to.

Anyway, I went and checked the codes, P203A - Drive Train. Sounds serious. After some on-line search, first I thought maybe a bad injector ! Then, further investigation said it had to do with the DEF tank (maybe bad sensor, etc). But the first check, is the tank full?

NOPE! Empty. It has 2 tanks! Both empty. I still had 3 gallons of DEF from my F350 Diesel, so used them to fill it up.

Light gone. A few reset attempts later, codes all gone. I knew it had a tank, but I've never filled it. Up until a little while ago, it was under warranty and yearly maintenance by BMW. I guess they filled the tank as part of the services.

My Ford F350, it had a read-out of the DEF level. None of the screens have that on the X5. Just a "Service Soon". I guess most BMW owners are above actually checking fluids.