P0336: the crankshaft position sensor reading doesn't add up
The crankshaft position sensor tells the engine control unit exactly where the crankshaft, the rotating shaft the pistons turn, is at any instant, which is how the computer times every spark and injection. This code means the pattern of that sensor's signal doesn't make sense against the engine's other signals, even though the signal itself looks electrically fine. It's a plausibility fault: the pattern isn't impossible, just not one the computer believes.
You might notice
- The engine may run roughly, hesitate, or stall
- The engine warning light comes on
- crankshaft position sensor
- — a sensor that tells the computer exactly where the crankshaft is at any instant
- crankshaft
- — the rotating shaft the pistons turn, which drives the car
What the code itself says
P0336 is a powertrain (engine, gearbox and drive system) code, and the 0 after the letter means it is a generic code with a standard meaning.
Grouped here as: Engine running, fuelling and misfires — Air metering, fuelling, ignition, misfire, idle, boost, knock, oxygen sensors and the catalyst, all working together in the running engine. That grouping is ours, to help explain the code. The code's official family is the letter at the start.
This page is generic. Your car isn't.
A code on its own only tells you what the sensor saw, not what's actually wrong — and that changes next to your other codes. Read this one together with the rest of your scan and we'll work out what's really going on.
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