Day 1 & 2 - DEFinitely not the START we hoped for...

Thursday after going into work and then doing some in town appointments, June was mostly packed when I got back to the house.

The weather was cold and gray, time to point south and get to some warmer weather.








We only planned to drive a bit over an hour to Hudson Falls, NY to visit Cuz Keith and Deb from June's side of the family so not a big drive, more of a shake down.

All was going swimmingly, we were almost to our destination, when June said what was that beep, I look at the instrument cluster and it says "Check Diesel Exhaust Fluid See Operator's Manual". 

Once we arrived I pulled out the owners manual, and it says.

"If the yellow Check Engine indicator lamp lights up as well, the DEF reducing agent is contaminated, diluted or not compliant with ISO 22241. After the first message and under normal operating conditions, you can drive on for up to approximately 50 miles (80 km). Then a warning tone sequence sounds and the engine can only be started another 10 times. Have the DEF tank cleaned and refilled at a qualified specialist workshop as soon as possible."

Based upon my googling, it appears the error could be several things, but the simplest is to just drain and replace the DEF. I decided I would deal with it on Friday in warmer places.

We had a nice evening with Keith and Deb.  They had just returned from a 3 week vacation to Florida in their Pleasure Way Plateau and we swapped stories, always a fun time with the Pattisons.









The P's prepared a nice breakfast for us on Friday Morning, time to get on the road.  It was 0F but we were set to START off for our next stop in Va....NOT! When I hit the key, it just went click.  This is not the first time this has happened on this unit, so I either have a bad chassis battery or something is draining it. Something else I will deal with when we get to warmer places. I looked for my jumper cables, I was sure I had, but none to be found, lucky Keith came to the rescue and gave us a jump start.

We had had enough hassle already and it was Friday so we wanted nothing to do with I95, even though it is farther, we took I88 to Binghamton and then down I81 to Pa. Just like the manual said, after 50 miles a message popped up that said "10 Starts Remaining".  While June drove I googled the Auto Parts stores where I could get DEF and a scanner to clear the error code, we then stopped in downtown Binghamton and picked up everything I needed but Jumper cables...doh just forgot.

At least the rest of the trip to the Malloy's was relatively boring other than lots of traffic. The weather from NY to VA was not much different, in Maryland it started snowing and Va had a nice coating of snow, it was pretty but 34F, we where hoping for something warmer.  When we shut down at the Malloy's at about 6PM we had not turned off the engine since 8AM, we will have 9 starts remaining when we leave Saturday morning.

We had a really nice dinner with the Malloy's and relived our trip to Italy last fall a bit, they were so fun to travel with and they are always great hosts.

Today we will head to June's nephew's place in NC, I know he has any tools I might need and hopefully it is warmer.  I am hopeful that the issue with our Van is just a bad batch of DEF or the fact that the DEF sat in the van all winter, it does go bad, but should have a 2 year shelf life.

It is always an adventure.