P0113 Intake Air Temperature Sensor Circuit High Input

Investigate soon

The voltage on this circuit is sitting near battery voltage. Typically a short to a positive feed, or a disconnected sensor floating high.

Can you drive it? The engine light will stay on and the car may run in a reduced-power mode. Read the freeze-frame data to see the conditions the fault was logged under.

The definition

P0113: Intake Air Temperature Sensor Circuit High Input.

P0113 is a powertrain code (the engine or gearbox), defined by the SAE standard - it means the same thing on any make of car, and any generic OBD-II reader will decode it.

What to check first

Cheapest and fastest checks first:

Unplug the sensor and check whether the signal falls. If it stays high, suspect the wiring rather than the sensor.
Check the earth path - a missing earth makes a sensor read high.

What actually causes this on a VAG

This is the mirror image of a circuit-low fault: the signal voltage has gone to the top of the scale, which on the usual sensor design means an open circuit - and the ECU translates that as an impossibly cold intake air. It's telling you the connection has been broken somewhere between the sensor and the ECU, not that the air is actually cold. The car will run on a substitute temperature, so you might see slightly odd cold-start behaviour or fuelling and little else. Remember that on many VAG engines this sensor lives inside the mass air flow sensor or the charge pressure and temperature sensor.

Most likely causes, in order

Connector unplugged or not fully seated. This is far and away the most common cause and it's free to check. It very often turns up straight after an air filter change, an intake or turbo pipe being removed, or any work near the front of the engine. Make sure the plug is pushed fully home until it clicks and that the locking clip isn't broken or missing.
Corroded pins or a broken wire. An open circuit can also come from corrosion eating through a pin, a wire pulled out of the back of the connector, or a loom broken by vibration or rodent damage. Look inside the plug for green deposits or a pin that's pushed back, and give each wire a gentle tug at the connector to check it's properly attached.
Failed sensor. A thermistor that's gone open circuit produces the same result as a cut wire. Treat this as the answer only after the plug and wiring have been checked and found sound.

Worth knowing: If - and only if - your engine has a separate two-pin air temperature sensor with its own plug, briefly bridging those two pins with the ignition on should send the reading to maximum hot; if it does, the wiring and ECU are fine and the sensor is the fault. On engines where the temperature sensor is part of a multi-pin mass air flow or charge pressure connector, don't attempt this, as shorting the wrong pins can damage the ECU.

Reading the code is the easy part

A code names the circuit that complained. What tells you why is watching the sensor behind it while the engine runs — and that is where a code reader stops and a diagnostic tool starts.

VAGPULSE reads every module in a VW, Audi, Skoda or SEAT — not just the engine — shows the live measuring blocks behind this fault, gives you the freeze-frame conditions it was logged under, and clears it once you have fixed it. It also does what a generic OBD reader cannot on a VAG: service resets, coding, adaptations, and Stage 1–3 flashing with your original file saved first.

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Common questions

What does P0113 mean?

P0113 means Intake Air Temperature Sensor Circuit High Input. The voltage on this circuit is sitting near battery voltage. Typically a short to a positive feed, or a disconnected sensor floating high.

Can I drive with P0113?

The engine light will stay on and the car may run in a reduced-power mode. Read the freeze-frame data to see the conditions the fault was logged under.