P0A18
Motor Torque Sensor Circuit Range/Performance
- Severity
- Medium
- Driving
- Drive only to a garage
The drive motor torque sensor is answering, but the value is not plausible against what the module knows from motor speed, road speed and load. Either the sensor is inaccurate, or the motor is genuinely not producing the torque that was commanded - and the second possibility is the one worth ruling out first, because it points at the inverter or the traction battery rather than at a cheap sensor.
Possible causes
- CommonFailing or drifting torque sensor
- CommonHigh resistance in the wiring skewing the reading
- CommonFault in the drive motor or inverter itself
- PossibleTraction battery degraded, limiting what the drive can deliver
- PossibleLow 12 volt battery voltage
- RareFailed control module input
What you might notice
- Reduced power
- Hybrid or electric drive system warning message
- Engine and electric drive not blending smoothly
- Reduced range, or the battery state of charge behaving oddly
- Acceleration that varies between journeys
What to check, in order
- Check the 12 volt battery first - it is the most common cause of scattered hybrid system codes.
- Read all codes. Inverter or traction battery codes alongside this one mean the sensor is probably reporting a real problem rather than having one.
- Check the wiring and connector for high resistance.
- Have the traction battery state of health assessed if the vehicle has significant mileage - a degraded battery genuinely limits what the drive can produce, and the sensor is then telling the truth.
- Do not disturb anything orange.
Read this code from your own car
Plug an ELM327 adapter into the OBD-II port under the dashboard. Pin16 reads every stored, pending and permanent code, explains each one like this page does — offline, with no account — and shows what the car recorded when the fault was set.
Where this code sits
P00xxP01xxP02xxP03xxP04xxP05xxP06xxP07xxP08xxP09xxP0AxxP0BxxP0CxxP0DxxP0ExxP0FxxP10xxP11xxP12xxP13xxP14xxP15xxP16xxP17xxP18xxP19xxP1AxxP1BxxP1CxxP1DxxP1ExxP1FxxP20xxP21xxP22xxP23xxP24xxP25xxP26xxP27xxP28xxP29xxP2AxxP2BxxP2CxxP2DxxP2ExxP2FxxP30xxP31xxP32xxP33xxP34xxP35xxP36xxP37xxP38xxP39xxP3AxxP3BxxP3CxxP3DxxP3ExxP3Fxx