dpf problems

I believe this has the little rubber pressure pipes that go to the exhaust to measure when the dpf is blocked, the pipes break/split/fall off and give strange readings.

Reply to
MrCheerful
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Hello,

I've got a 60-plate 2.0L diesel Zetec Ford Mondeo that I bought at the end of 2011, when the car would have been 1 year old.

I have driven it for four years without any trouble. Then in December

2015, I had the engine warning light come on. The car went to a garage and they connected it to their computer and said it was a DPF fault. Their computer could not clear the fault, so they told the computer they had fitted a new DPF and that reset the fault! They advised me to drive along the motorway, to burn off the soot in the dpf, which I did.

Everything was fine as far as the dpf was concerned for a few months and then recently the light came back on. I spoke to the garage and the computer said it was the dpf again. This time the computer cleared the fault. They advised me to fill up with premium diesel (Shell Vpower) I'm not sure how this is supposed to help, I know it has extra additives in but would they make a difference to the dpf, I thought the additives were more about engine performance? Anyway, I did as advised and have put vpower in. It has not stopped the light coming on.

This morning I borrowed a friend's Sealey code reader. It said I had code P2463. Google says this is the dpf. I reset the code and drove for one hour, 60 miles, along the motorway at 3000 rpm. The light has come back on. Wasn't the drive long enough to clear the soot? Could it be a sensor problem rather than a soot problem?

The garage have told me to bring it in for a static regeneration. Do you think that will work? If the motorway drive has not, I am not sure this will?

Why has it suddenly started to play up? My driving has not changed in four years. If anything, I am driving further to work now than I did in 2014. Why is it playing up now?

Should it go back to my regular garage or are their DPF specialists that I should go to?

Thanks, Stephen.

Reply to
Stephen

If the pipes are off it will register no pressure at all and flag a fault? If you could cut the pipes and stop the error code it would defeat the purpose ? I know a Focus with the same system gave error codes till the pipes were replaced.

Reply to
MrCheerful

and if the pipes are reversed it gives an error too. and iirc the dpf is supposed to be replaced at 75k

there are places that remove the dpf and remap the system.

Reply to
MrCheerful

Wouldn't that be more likely to give a false negative than a false positive result? I imagine it is there to monitor back-pressure. Any leak with reduce apparent back-pressure surely?

Tim

Reply to
Tim+

As long as the emissions for the mot remain in limit, I cannot think of any reason it would be illegal at present.

Reply to
MrCheerful

I shouldn't think that is legal at all

Reply to
Norman Rowling

Well found, I had not heard of that change, I knew it was OK a few years ago.

Reply to
MrCheerful

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Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Although it says they should check it is present, how will they tell as long as the casing remains? It will presumably be only a visual check.

Reply to
Steve Walker

I will ask next week, my guess is that they don't bother if it all looks kosher. Hacked out and joined with bean tins is a dead giveaway.

Reply to
MrCheerful
[...]

There seems to be no clear detail at the moment.

Most obvious way as MOT tests are 'non-invasive' would be to add an IR thermometer to the standard kit, and check a temperature differential exists across the filter.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Neither would I, nor would I own a diesel car. However, it is an available option, which is now an MOT failure if noticed.

Reply to
MrCheerful

Immoral? It's a change (not even) I would carry out . . .

Reply to
RJH

En el artículo , Chris Whelan escribió:

Grauniad (yes, I know):

or

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"More than a thousand diesel cars have been caught without an essential pollution filter that traps deadly particles, according to government figures. But experts warn the rogue practice of removing the filters, which contributes to air pollution-related deaths, could be far more widespread."

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

If there is a significant difference in particulate emission with the DPF removed, surely it can't be beyond the wit of man to develop a means of testing that from the exhaust pipe?

I've never understood why anyone would want to drive a diesel unless doing huge annual mileages; old ones were slow, smelly but reliable, new ones are faster, less smelly, but unreliable.

I may be biased because the characteristics of modern diesels don't suit my driving style. The 'natural' point to change up seems to coincide with

500rpm into boost, giving a very jerky ride. Of course, I could adapt, but why bother?

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Was my 1991 BX TurboD old or new? Fast enough, reliable - the body forced its retirement, not the engine. (I will grant that the previous

19D was quite slow). It did do a good squid impression. Is my 2001 Xantia old or new? Seems reliable at 213K miles, fast enough. I don't think it squids.

Of course it's possible that these two are in a sweetspot - when they'd worked out how to make them quick enough, but before they started pushing performance too hard.

Is 7K/year a huge annual mileage? I thought it wasn't, yet diesel is still worth it for me - because the car gets used for long distances rather than local pottering. And local pottering is the biggest killer of modern diesels IIRC.

That's not a reason for not getting one - if you had one, you'd change your driving style, unless you were very stupid. If the other arguments keep you on petrol though then I see no reason to change.

I'll probably carry on getting big cars with diesel engines. I use the size, and big cars with petrol engines drink too much. The way the car is used suits a diesel too. I've not had to pay a noticable premium for the diesel car over petrol either - well, 500-odd quid for each of the two above doesn't leave much space for that :-)

Reply to
Clive George

Old.

Old.

Quite possibly.

Far from it.

If I understand correctly, you paid 500UKP for each of those cars. At that price point, everything is a gamble, and all bets regarding longevity are off!

Mate bought a diesel Fiat van for sub-500 quid. It lasted two years, and he covered around 30k miles in it before it expired. He bought another, three years newer but same technology. Before the first month was up, he had spent almost what he's paid for it in repairs, and then the crankshaft bolt snapped, destroying the engine.

The type of car you buy, your usage pattern, and the price you pay are far from typical however.

Why would I want to? I do a low annual mileage in smallish (Focus) cars, and petrol suits me. What would I gain? The difference in fuel costs per year would be so small as to be insignificant.

Probably!

Perhaps I should have defined my use of new; by that, I mean anything with direct injection, EGR and DPF. IOW, from the last, say, five years. There ain't going to be many of them around as viable 15-year old cheapies!

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

One option is to drill out the dpf core with a long masonry drill, and re-map to stop regeneration cycles. I would have thought this is fairly undetectable by external inspection alone, and might even defeat the temperature differential test suggested above.

AIUI the main reason for the DPF is to mitigate the increased soot/particulates arising from the use of EGR to reduce NOX emmissions. Without EGR (e.g. a blanked EGR valve) a modern common-rail diesel in good condition should easily pass the MoT smoke test without a DPF. Thus, it is not a good idea to remove/disable the DPF without also blanking the EGR valve, and re-mapping to remove EGR/DPF activities.

If the OP is having problems with a blocked DPF it would be worth checking that the EGR valve is working properly - if it is sticking open longer than it should it will be sending creating large amounts of soot.

Reply to
D A Stocks

That's covered by "The other arguments" which I mentioned immediately below - which you seem to have ignored. Those are what keeps you on petrol, not the different driving style, which you would change, probably unconsciously, if an appropriate car came along.

...

The Xantia has direct injection and EGR, but no DPF. First generation HDi, and it's a nice engine. Though I'm currently hating the cooling fans.

I think most of my friends have diesels. One had a bad experience with EGR or DPF on a Focus apparently prompted by running out of fuel - I'd probably stay away from Fords. The Skoda, Pug/Cit, VW owners seem pretty happy. They don't buy the highest performance ones, and will probably do enough fast driving to not have DPF problems bar that Ford incident.

Reply to
Clive George

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