Jaguar XE Def Sensor Warning

FleetNews purchased a 2.0-litre i4 turbodiesel Jaguar XE for testing, but after two days of driving a warning appeared on the display.

This was a brand new, £35,425 Portfolio trim Jaguar XE with additional equipment and the car only had 2,600 miles on it before the “diesel exhaust fluid quality detected” warning appeared. Author Stephen Briers, only had 495 miles until the Jaguar XE fails to start and he was lucky enough to get it to a dealership before that happened.

After three hours, Marshall Jaguar found the problem. New car buyers are under the assumption that their vehicles are delivered with a full tank of AdBlue, but often times that isn’t the case. With Briers’s XE, the AdBlue levels were so low that even after topping the tank up, the display still showed the third DEF diagnostics message. This was no fault of his own as the AdBlue was topped off before he received the vehicle and someone at the dealership ignored the first two warnings.

There are four possible messages the instrument panel will display when DEF levels start getting low; first ones advises you to top up the AdBlue, second message comes with an amber warning icon and outright tells you to refill the tank, third warning is a distance countdown before the DEF tank is empty, and the final message comes with a red warning icon and states that restarts are not possible until the DEF tank is filled.

The Jaguar XE had to undergo a 30-mile drive cycle before the technician was able to turn off the warning. This problem would explain why some diesel vehicles need a DEF top up before the 5,000 mile mark.