# diesel owners, whats your DPF cleaning cycle?



## bidderman1969 (Oct 20, 2006)

i know its a boring subject, but after my DPF got full and went into limp mode again the other night, i was wondering what everyone else experience with their DPF cleaning cycle was like?

for instance, my cars handbook says to go over 50 mph constantly for 15 mins, which i somehow don't believe as i had just come out of London on a job and was doing a constant 75 mph and yet it still clogged up, so i did the 50 mph in 4th gear for 20 mins, and then to make sure, i turned round and did it again on the way back.

so, what diesel car have you got, and whats your cleaning/regenerating cycle?

may even help for my next car choice, as i like to know in advance what I'm getting into

:thumb:


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## mand (Nov 17, 2009)

A4 3.0tdi, no idea when it is doing it's thing. Most of my driving is A roads, average speed 50 in morning, higher in eves. Very little stop start.
Sometimes the fan stays on after switching off when it has not been driven hard or got too hot, so may be that's part of the regen cycle.


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## bidderman1969 (Oct 20, 2006)

mand said:


> A4 3.0tdi, no idea when it is doing it's thing. Most of my driving is A roads, average speed 50 in morning, higher in eves. Very little stop start.
> Sometimes the fan stays on after switching off when it has not been driven hard or got too hot, so may be that's part of the regen cycle.


what does the handbook say?


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## bradleymarky (Nov 29, 2013)

4th gear at 70mph for 15/20 miles/minutes. I did buy some of the Power maxed DPF cleaner and my average MPG went up for a while.


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## ardandy (Aug 18, 2006)

That run wont clear the dpf, more maintain it.

Mine was at 65% on my octy vrs and the vw guy told the car to do a forced regen. This took 20+ mins and dropped it to 20%ish. What you're doing will only clear a weeks worth of town driving.


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## ffrs1444 (Jun 7, 2008)

I've got a corsa 1.3 cdti the first month had the car it came on never since seen the light but when I drive it , It's from Wiltshire to Plymouth so gets a good drive


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## Bigoggy (Sep 1, 2014)

Think i have to be doing over a certain rev count not a certain speed


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## bidderman1969 (Oct 20, 2006)

ardandy said:


> *That run wont clear the dpf, more maintain it.*
> 
> Mine was at 65% on my octy vrs and the vw guy told the car to do a forced regen. This took 20+ mins and dropped it to 20%ish. What you're doing will only clear a weeks worth of town driving.


who is that meant for fella?

also, how can you tell how full yours is?


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## millns84 (Jul 5, 2009)

We've had diesel cars as family wagons for nine years now - 2006 1.6 Xsara Picasso, 2009 2.0 Volvo V70, 2010 2.2 Kia Sedona & 2014 VW Caddy Maxi Life.

I've never noticed a regen cycle and haven't had any issues with anything other than the Picasso's injectors clogging up due to Mrs Millns prolific use of supermarket diesel combined with endless stop/start driving around town.

We're not high mileage drivers either - Less than 30k in each of the above cars. I'd have thought the DPF's would have caused us more issues given that's what the consenses is about modern dervs and town driving.


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## Delboy_Trotter (Jun 7, 2007)

no idea - never seen the light as it were - had the car 3 years, but then again i do 15 miles a day across fast A roads and back roads so it gets a good run everyday


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## davies20 (Feb 22, 2009)

I used to have a PD170 unit in my Altea - superb engine but feck me that DPF was on all the time!

Completely my fault as it was only doing about 3 mile a day. went into limp mode once and that was enough for me to decide that the car wasn't for me!


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## muzzer (Feb 13, 2011)

Never seen it in the skoda, but then most of my outward journey is at 60 mph for 30 miles, the return journey is mostly the same but with ten miles of motorway at 70mph....officer


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## PugIain (Jun 28, 2006)

My DPF care regime is.. hammer the **** out of it a couple of times a month.
Only full takes of fuel too, putting pennies in every week uses up the FAP fluid quickly, which it needs to regenerate the filter.

Mine has a decent run up a 60mph A road 15 miles each way 4 times a week.
So to give it a blow through I just do one trip in 3rd all the way, also I do minimal town mileage.

According to Planet when I last checked my FAP load was 19%, so I guess it's in reasonable health.
I've only noticed mine regenerate twice. Once on my drive after coming home, so I had to take it out again. The git.


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## ffrs1444 (Jun 7, 2008)

My handbook says over 2000rpm to aid in cleaning


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## never ready (Dec 12, 2007)

I had a 2009 BMW X5 3.0 x-drive, only started getting the limp home problem at about 115,000 miles.
I added a bottle of Wynns DPF cleaner to a full tank, went for a 20 min drive keeping the revs around 3k then ragged it a bit away from a few lights and junctions (aka normal BMW driving  ) the cloud of soot than came out the back was unbelievable.

It was ok for a while, in the end I just added a bottle of Wynns every four tanks, it was still going strong at 138,000 when I traded it in.

http://www.halfords.com/motoring-tr...wynns-diesel-particulate-filter-cleaner-325ml


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## Trewarin (Mar 25, 2015)

It's about engine temp over time.
Drive it aggressively, try and get the temps up.

Think race car for a while.


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## Andy-P (Jun 1, 2014)

mand said:


> A4 3.0tdi, no idea when it is doing it's thing. Most of my driving is A roads, average speed 50 in morning, higher in eves. Very little stop start.
> Sometimes the fan stays on after switching off when it has not been driven hard or got too hot, so may be that's part of the regen cycle.


Yes, that can be part of the regen' cycle.


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## Andy-P (Jun 1, 2014)

Trewarin said:


> It's about engine temp over time.
> Drive it aggressively, try and get the temps up.
> 
> Think race car for a while.


Nope. Won't work, and common misconception. Needs to see constant speed and moderate rev's. The engine ecu will see this and will change the engine program, or map, to heat the DPF and burn off the soot.


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## Sveneng (Apr 20, 2008)

We bought a new Nissan Qashqai that makes no mention of a DPF regen cycle. After six months and 5000 miles it's been fine. It does a mix of short journeys with a 120 mile run each way to the Midlands roughly every six weeks.


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## Andy-P (Jun 1, 2014)

davies20 said:


> I used to have a PD170 unit in my Altea - superb engine but feck me that DPF was on all the time!
> 
> Completely my fault as it was only doing about 3 mile a day. went into limp mode once and that was enough for me to decide that the car wasn't for me!


Yep, one of the reasons why if you're not doing good runs and just pottering about town, you should avoid new modern diesels. Just too much hastle.


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## Cookies (Dec 10, 2008)

Mine does the DPF regeneration cycle roughly once a week, which equates to roughly 250 - 300 miles. As Andy has said though, if I have a few long motorway journeys to do, it can happen more frequently due to the engine temperatures etc. 

Never been any bother though. Touch wood....

Cooks


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## Pittsy (Jun 14, 2014)

I think mine us about every 2-3 months, I noticed the fuel economy go down but that's about it... 
When I 1st had the car the DPF light came on several times, my uncle had a look and said that the best bet is to keep the revs above 2k and try to do 1 long journey a month. 
Not had any since:thumb:


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## Richf (Apr 26, 2008)

Our old '09 Superb started doing the regens more and more often , mpg dropped to 36mpg at some points and with 70,000 miles covered in 5 years the car spent most of its life on motorways and dual carriageways at speed. Bit the bullet and deleted it and had it mapped out , ran better , quieter , better at motorway speeds and picked up a couple of mpg 

Sailed through the mot as well and the insurers classed it as a modified exhaust , wish I did it sooner , best £400 i ever spent


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## Naddy37 (Oct 27, 2005)

Never noticed mine on the E300 Hybrid. Mine sits on a motorway mostly, covering anything between 1500-2000 miles a week. 

Had it clog up on an Audi S-Line estate once, a good ragging soon cleared that.


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## ardandy (Aug 18, 2006)

Ragging it wont always help either. If the engine is warm and you rag it it'll push the exhaust gasses through too fast and wont heat the filter up as efficiently. 

Consistent speed when hot is the key.


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## Daffy (Dec 15, 2005)

Andy-P said:


> Yep, one of the reasons why if you're not doing good runs and just pottering about town, you should avoid new modern diesels. Just too much hastle.


Had DPF's on 3 cars over the last 5 or 6 years between me and the wife. Most journeys are to and from work stop start mostly and 6 miles each way and none of the cars has ever had a warning light come on so for me that doesn't wash I think there must be more to it than that. The Toerag, 3ltr engine warms up much quicker than other diesels I have driven so not sure if that helps.


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## Rayaan (Jun 1, 2014)

Dont have one. Wife only does school runs, shopping etc. maximum 100 miles a week but not at sustained high speed.

Had a few DPF issues, needed regen by the dealer, hence next car is going to be a petrol.

Another problem is, because the car is old it doesnt have a light to tell you when the DPF is full


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## bidderman1969 (Oct 20, 2006)

Rayaan said:


> Dont have one. Wife only does school runs, shopping etc. maximum 100 miles a week but not at sustained high speed.
> 
> Had a few DPF issues, needed regen by the dealer, hence next car is going to be a petrol.
> 
> Another problem is, because the car is old it doesnt have a light to tell you when the DPF is full


What car we talking about?

Appreciate people sharing stories can peeps please put what car they're talking about, otherwise it doesn't make much sense :lol::thumb:


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## CoOkIeMoNsTeR (Mar 6, 2011)

My old Peugeot 407sw 2.0 HDi dpf was a pain. Used to do 130 miles a day in it and it would regen once a week. By 74k miles it was making a right hash of them so I plugged it into a diag and the dpf load was 83% but the software (Peugeot Planet) predicted it had a fair few thousand miles left in it yet. We force regen'd the car which took the load down to 31% not great but better and it improved and never gave me an issue up to 95k miles when it was sold.

My youngest brother has a 63 plate Peugeot 508sw 1.6 HDi and his has had a new dpf under warrenty as the filter was constantly clogging from nearly new and the light was on all the time. The car does about 1500 miles a month with him but at 14 months and about 20k odd miles it had a new dpf fitted but that filter has been fine since and the car now has something like 30k on the clock and is 20 months old.

My current Volvo doesn't have one woohoo!!


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## Rayaan (Jun 1, 2014)

bidderman1969 said:


> What car we talking about?
> 
> Appreciate people sharing stories can peeps please put what car they're talking about, otherwise it doesn't make much sense :lol::thumb:


04 Merc C220 CDI. Its covered 74k miles but was bought in 2006 with 45k on the clock. It was a very well looked after company car and spent most of its time on motorways so DPF was pretty clean when bought.

The wife drove it on school runs which probably didnt help but I ended up using it after I took a risk and bought a completely fire damaged property to do up. Every penny counted so 30-45mpg in the Merc was much better than 16-20mpg in the car I had at the time. It got cleaned out fairly regularly but after a year of use in my wife's hands, it went into limp mode! I knew it was DPF, tried getting it straight onto the motorway, wouldnt even get up to 50mph!

Had to take it to Merc in the end to get a regen done and its been fine since last year. Im reluctant to take the car out on the motorway though, lots of things about to go wrong with it from what Ive been told


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## Horatio (Oct 30, 2011)

Decat it. Maybe be wrong but I don't think diesels are tested for emissions, just a smoke test. get the cats removed from pipe work to keep appearance of DPF

"Legal requirements and the MoT test

From February 2014 the inspection of the exhaust system carried out during the MoT test will include a check for the presence of a DPF. A missing DPF, where one was fitted when the vehicle was built, will result in an MoT failure. *A vehicle might still pass the MoT visible smoke emissions test, which is primarily intended to identify vehicles that are in a very poor state of repair*, whilst emitting illegal and harmful levels of fine exhaust particulate."


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## Richf (Apr 26, 2008)

A cat is nothing to do with a dpf , they are totally different things 

As said the mot requires the presence of a dpf , when you remove a dpf they cut the body open remove the internals and then re weld the body and refit the dpf . Finally they adjust the ecu so that it no longer looks for a dpf . 

On my dpf you couldn't see where it had been welded when it was back on the car , not that it matters , and it sailed through the emissions test 

If the mot changes to require a car to meet the emission in the log book all car owners will be in trouble


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## hulla the hulla (May 20, 2009)

2006 335d - mine regens every 300 miles or so, you can feel the car falter and hesitate slightly and power feels like it drops off. Most of my driving is A road or motorway on my commute - it's never been a bother to me but is known to sometimes be problematic. I plug in my diag code reader once a month or so as part of my regular maintenance routine and check fault codes and exhaust back pressure just to be sure. I can force a regen using the code reader too if needs be.

Re MOT's - on the 3 series most of the bottom of the car is covered and a tester wouldn't know without removing panels to see if the DPF is still there or not.


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## DIESEL DAVE (Jul 26, 2007)

2013 Hilux 3.0d regens around the 200 mile mark used mainly on low speed runs, noticeable by slightly different engine note and a higher than normal idle.
Over in about 5 or 6 miles at a speed of over 40, no need to rag the **** of it for DPF regeneration only to clear ****e from the rest of the system (turbo etc)


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## AndyC (Oct 25, 2005)

Not sure which of mine listed below have/had a DPF beyond the Skoda and Ford but my only warning light was on the Skoda last summer after a lot of very short trips. Not happened since.

02 Laguna dCi
04 Astra 120 CDTi
05 Vectra 150 CDTi
08 Saab 93 150
09 Smax 140 TDCi
13 Octavia vrs 

No idea if and when a regen happens but my usual mileage is c. 900 a week and mostly motorways - shortest trip is a 20 mile commute to the office when I'm there.

HTH


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## bidderman1969 (Oct 20, 2006)

quite interesting data, cheers all, much appreciated


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