DPF Cleaning

[telbert]

Anyone know anything about this? Had my ECU warning light come on and had someone out to look at the car.The diagnosis was that the DPF is blocked and needs cleaning.From what I gather I can either do this myself by adding a solution to the diesel tank( cheapest option but might not make a bit of difference according to the mechanic) or taking it in and having it cleaned and flushed out while still fitted to the car. Anyone had this done? whats the cost of the second option? did it make a great difference and did it solve the problem? All advice welcome.
Thanks

 

[telbert]

Anyone know anything about this? Had my ECU warning light come on and had someone out to look at the car.The diagnosis was that the DPF is blocked and needs cleaning.From what I gather I can either do this myself by adding a solution to the diesel tank( cheapest option but might not make a bit of difference according to the mechanic) or taking it in and having it cleaned and flushed out while still fitted to the car. Anyone had this done? whats the cost of the second option? did it make a great difference and did it solve the problem? All advice welcome.
Thanks

Oh and any chance this is likely to be covered by the warranty I have?

 

[cybershot]

DPF’s are never included in warranty. Even for brand new cars. Something the sales people always manage to never tell you. Too interested in getting the sale than actually asking you what kind of daily drive you do and recommending something more suited. I had one go on me within 500 miles of being brand new. Luckily it was a company car.

I’ve plenty of expierence of modern diesels and if you’re not ‘driving them right’ (every car manufacturers line) they can be a big hassle.

Vauxhall probably have the worst implementation of it I’ve known. German cars and ford were never much of a real problem apart from the occasional light once or twice a year, and that was with me doing regular motorway driving.

If the light has only come on once and you’ve escaped going into limp mode then I would get the wynn’s Dpf stuff. Add it to 40 litres of BP ultimate and go for a trip on the motorway in a lower gear keeping revs above 2000 for at least 20 minutes. This should be easily done on a motorway that’s not too busy and then come back in the opposite direction.

You should have a special light on the dash to indicate when you need to give it a ‘blow out’ so the ecu reading from your mechanic could be a red herring simply because it’s failed to do a re-gen previously. The record stays in the ecu codes. Likely because your journey came to an end. you can tell when a re-gen is taking place as your stop start won’t work or the revs when stationary will be slightly higher, if you journey ends and you turn off the engine the fans might be going crazy despite the fact you’ve done nothing taxing.

Keep repeating the motorway process at least once a month if you never do regular motorway driving.

If the light keeps coming on despite doing the above every month. Get it cleaned. It’s not cheap. But still cheaper than a whole replacement that will cost more than a grand.

If you’re not doing motorway driving anyway now is the time to get rid of your diesel and get a petrol car. Clogged DPFs are not worth the hassle. You’re polluting more and having to do extra miles just to keep it from getting clogged up.

ETA: also stop putting shit quality fuel in it. Start using shell/bp and as above once a month fill up with the Wynn stuff and bp ultimate/shell v-power. Worst thing youcan probaly do to a diesel is keep filling up with cheap supermarket fuel. IMO anyway. Others may disagree.

 

[Nivag]

Buy a Bluetooth ODB2 reader off eBay, get one of the free apps that reads the car error codes and reset them. Then as mentioned above go for a long drive up and down the motorway a couple of times and see if it re-appears.
Disclaimer, I'm not a mechanic