Diesel DPF Issues

[jonceebee]

Regarding the issues of deciding which engine to go for, this report may help make a decision:

If you are looking
to snap-up a diesel car, you will now struggle to buy one without a DPF unless
you go for an older vehicle. Any diesel motor produced after 2008 should be
fitted with a DPF.

But despite
helping the environment, they appear to be causing many motorists a costly
problem - especially those who are not driving long distances.

This
has led to some motoring experts warning low mileage or mainly urban drivers
that they should not to be tempted away from petrol cars by better diesel fuel
economy figures.

Jon Quirk, head of
editorial at autotrader.co.uk, says that customer feedback has revealed common
problems with diesel cars that specifically spend more than two-thirds of their
time in congested, urban areas.

He says: "DPFs
have a self-cleansing process built into the software of the car, so after a
long journey they are meant to regenerate and re-cleanse.

"However, if the
car spends a lot of time performing short journeys, the DPFs can become clogged
because the regeneration process doesn't have time to initiate.

"We've heard of
numerous national patrols being regularly called out to service cars as a
result of particulate filter warning lights illuminating, indicating a partial
blockage of the filter, with short distance driving being a contributory
factor.'

For this reason,
experts are warning drivers who plan to a buy a car for mainly town-based,
stop-start driving, to avoid a new diesel.

The AA, for example,
says that it is regularly called out to deal with cars with the particulate
filter light on - indicating a partial blockage of the filter.

When buying a new
or modern used diesel, car hunters must consider that DPFs are expensive to
replace, with a typical repair bill costing in the region of £1,000-£3,000 on
popular models.

The need for
caution is even greater for those buying second-hand modern diesels, as they
are less likely to benefit from the protection of a manufacturer's warranty and
the filter is closer to the end of its life when it will need changing.

If you do buy a
used diesel, it is essential to find out how soon the DPF will need replacing
and what that will cost.

For example, a DPF
in a Fiat 500 1.3 diesel manufactured between 2009-13 will cost £1,200 to
repair, while an Audi A4 2 litre diesel built between 2007-10 will cost nearer
£2,000 according to Auto Trader.

A Mini 1.6 DPF
replacement cost typically hits £1,420 while the Volkswagen Polo will be
£1,170.

if you mainly
drive in town or in stop-start traffic and don't do regular longer motorway
journeys, then a diesel car with a DPF could spell problems.

Ideally, you do
not want to be doing regular short runs with the engine starting up from cold,
as regeneration does not happen properly

[Donkey]

They can be regenerated - normaly a good boot down the motorway even helps to be fairDPF are bad news but its not news as such its been around a very long time and given the blame for everything (we should in this country refer to them as immigrants realy)Ive had a few cars and been part of fleet cars for over 15 years, most fleet cars hit 100K without anyone even knowingYes short journeys do block them, but then a run every day of 5 miles up a motorway does same thing, for theses to self clean the engine has to be running at max tempIt will Ive no doubt signal end of diesals as we know it simply as fuel is not cheap anymore and petrol engines are significantly improving but if you can just get over 40mph every couple of weeks then i still think the torque and drive from a oil burner way to go

[Contigo]

Scaremongering. I've heard that Nissan will regenerate them anyway should they fail.

[Donkey]

Ive heard of regeneration from as little as £100Dont forget when cat convertors came out same shock horror storys, then as more vehicles on the road other companies now manufacture them so the prices are well down unless you buy main agent of courseA DPF as expensive as they are are not a major worry so many people make them out to be, if your doing more than 20K a year than realisticly your better off especialy when it comes to resale values

[jonceebee]

[quote="Contigo"]Scaremongering. I've heard that Nissan will regenerate them anyway should they fail. [/QUOTE]
Yes they probably will but at a cost and they will after a high mileage need replacing. No I am not scaremongering, it is what the dealer told me and in fact Nissan UK also back petrol for low non motorway driving. If I still had company cars doing 25k per year, I would probably go for a diesel and be happy to drive one. But as I am now paying to own, run and maintain the car I will go for advise given me and what may be the long term cheaper option.There have been many garages offering to remove DPF from cars and also on the web, but this loophole has been closed now as of February 2014, cars without DPF filters on them will be an automatic M.O.T.fail

[jonceebee]

[quote="Contigo"]Scaremongering. I've heard that Nissan will regenerate them anyway should they fail. [/QUOTE]
Just to add to my last post, this is from a local company who specialises in regenerating DPF, not a cheap option.

"We can
identify the cause of your DPF becoming blocked, this is a
chargeable service.

We can
fix the problem; you will be advised of the cost before we proceed with any
repairs that may be necessary.

We can
then Clean your DPF if necessary, often this is not required.

Reset any
error codes using the same procedures that the main dealers use

Perform
an emergency regeneration and ensure that the complete DPF system is
operating correctly so the problem won't happen again.

You probably
want to know how much it costs....

To clean the DPF on most vehicles costs £265.00,
this includes resetting the soot level calculation in the ecu if necessary, any
repairs needed before we can clean the DPF will be advised once the initial
diagnosis is performed.

The
cause of the failure of the DPF to not function correctly and self-clean
will be advised and the cost of repair will be made clear to you before
proceeding with the repair or cleaning of the dpf, so you will normally have a
cost of one hours labour before deciding to proceed further. Diagnosing
problems that have caused the DPF to become blocked is a chargeable service at
£70.00 per hour, we can normally diagnose most problems within an hour, any
problems advised MUST be rectified BEFORE we will clean the dpf. This will
prevent the dpf blocking again.

[Contigo]

If you drive them once a week at WOT in the higher gears then all will be good. It hasn't stopped me getting one. Nissan will allow one regen free of charge I am told by my dealer so I don't envisage too many of them anyway.

[Marianda24]

What is WOT, Phil?

[cliffgorse]

my mate who is a mechanic as told me if your car slows down after a lot of short journeys, take it on the motorway and drive for about 20 mins at 70 and it should clean the DPF out.

[jonceebee]

[quote="cliffgorse"]]my mate who is a mechanic as told me if your car slows down after a lot of short journeys, take it on the motorway and drive for about 20 mins at 70 and it should clean the DPF out.[/QUOTE]]
Seems a little counter productive this. e.g. if you don't use motorways, you have to find one to drive legally at 70mph for 20 minutes, when you don't actually need to. So you will have travelled about 24 miles on the motoqway and "X" number of miles to get onto it and then back to your normal route. In that 20 minutes you'll have used at least 1.2 gallon of petrol, put wear and tear on your engine, tyres etc. and adding mileage to the car for no reason.