P0473–P047D Exhaust Pressure Sensor A Circuit High
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.
Which code is which
Same fault, different cylinder or bank — diagnosed the same way. Several set together usually means one shared cause.
| Code | Definition | Severity |
|---|---|---|
P0473 | Exhaust Pressure Sensor A Circuit High | Investigate soon |
P047D | Exhaust Pressure Sensor B Circuit High | Investigate soon |
The definition
P0473: Exhaust Pressure Sensor A Circuit High.
P0473 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
The mirror image of the low-circuit fault: the control unit is seeing the exhaust pressure sensor's signal above the range it will accept. On this kind of sensor that usually means an open circuit somewhere - a broken wire, a disconnected plug, a corroded terminal or a lost earth - or the signal being shorted to a supply voltage. Again this is a comment on the circuit, not on your actual exhaust pressure. On a car with a particulate filter it commonly appears straight after work around the turbo, manifold or filter.
Most likely causes, in order
- Sensor plug not connected or not fully latched. By far the first thing to check if anything has recently been done near the exhaust, turbo or filter. The connector can look seated while the locking tab has not clicked home. Unclip it, refit it firmly and see whether the fault returns.
- Broken wire or a terminal pushed back in the connector. Heat cycling backs terminals out of connector bodies over time, giving an open circuit that behaves exactly like a disconnected plug. Look into the plug at the pins themselves, not just at the outside of it.
- Lost earth, or a supply shared with other sensors. On many of these engines one reference feed and one earth serve several sensors. If a handful of unrelated sensor faults all appeared at the same moment, a common earth point or a shared feed is far more likely than several sensors failing together - check the shared connection before condemning any individual sensor.
- Sensor failed open internally. A reasonable conclusion once the plug, the wiring and the supply side have all been proved good.
Worth knowing: If your scan shows several different sensors complaining at once, stop testing this one and go looking for the earth or reference feed they share. Replacing sensors one at a time in that situation gets expensive quickly and fixes nothing.
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 P0473 mean?
P0473 means Exhaust Pressure Sensor A Circuit High. 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 P0473?
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.