In all fairness, the urea systems are really annoying. I was driving a rental vehicle and I got a warning that it was out of urea in the middle of nowhere. I stopped at a gas station which did not have any and the vehicle would not start until you put urea into it which I could not find in the middle of the desert.
I had a co-worker who had a similar horror story. Drove out into the Alaska outback in a modern truck (<3 years old), there was some issue with the emissions reduction system (DEF heater failed), the vehicle went into "limp" mode after 50 miles (40 MpH speed limited) and displayed a warning it would limit them to 20 MpH after another 50 miles.
There literally wasn't any dealer or provider that could do anything before it hit 20 MpH limit, and the truck wound up being flatbed-ed (luckily the manufacturer picked up the bill, but still).
This definitely makes diesel vehicles less reliable, more expensive to maintain, and likely reduces their lifespan. If I purchased a truck I'd go gas.
I imagine that this is when I would perform a hard reset (by disconnecting the battery or pulling the fuse) of the ECU.
Not sure if it would work on that vehicle, but it generally clears emissions codes and the like, even on fairly recent vehicles. Its possible it might have let the car drive another 50 miles or so.
