Diesel particle filtration issue

Ya I had similar issue when I bought 12 Octavia. Had 2 weeks and went into limp mode. In warranty the car had to have egr valve replaced.

I do 20km round trip and an occasional long one. VW had a fix for emissions problem but it causes car to regen to often. Love the car though and no problems since.

All modern diesels will give trouble if not given a decent run occasionally.

Car most likely had a pre-existing issue before sale. Driving like a lunatic around the block is not a way to clear a DPF in any case.

Bring it into local Toyota dealer and try and get any history they have on the car as well as any historic fault codes related to the DPF.

The crux of it is proving that the car is faulty. Even if it is, the garage isn’t obliged to refund you. They could attempt a repair.

same issue. The wife wanted (should put that in bold) the newer car (at the time) and only used it for a few kms in cuc traffic everyday and after a year the car started cutting out. I told her it was bad idea and didnt suit a diesel but the petrol was looking worn I guess. This was 2017 . I was given it back when issue started- ofcourse!. Was told to drive it hard etc by the dealer.

To fix it I never use it for short journeys when I can avoid them. Use the petrol for this

use petrol additive (diopethane or something)

It gets few long journeys every few month (4hours)

It purring along still. now if I was to use it alot for really short journeys (3k or less ) for a week or 2 it would come back.

Are they covering the cost of the DPF replacement?

Sell it on and buy a petrol.

it expensive otherwise but your car should be humming after the replacement

Unless you are doing serious high yearly mileage, minimum 15'000 Klms, then petrol is the best bet. Unless like me, ( annual mileage 8-10'000 Klms per year) your daily drive is up and down hill and predominantly in the lower gears, so you have the engine in the high revving range, but at low speed. It only ever see's 7th ( top) gear when on the motorway, which is not very often, none the less I have ( fingers crossed) never had any DPF trouble. The car is an MB 220 diesel.

yep - would concur here. It was when the journey times reduced to minutes from hours that my car started having the issue

Bottom line cpoh1 is short stop start trips are the death of any engine with a DPF fitted. I mentioned in my post that my annual mileage rarely passes 8'000 klms, but its all up and down hill, on back country roads, with the rare motorway trip. It rarely reaches 7th gear, so high engine revs and low gearing, and that ensures that the engine is getting a good workout. But if I were doing this kind of mileage on ordinary roads, I would be expecting DPF trouble. 8000 Klms /52 weeks equals 153 Klms / week or 22 klms per day average. For a petrol engine? No bother. For a DPF engine, yes, its a problem. And that's the difference. I should add that I change the engine oil and filter every 8'000 Klms ( 1 year of driving) and I use long life 20'000 Klms oil. And this is very important too where DPF's are concerned. Each regen attempt causes extra fuel to be injected into the cylinders, the more attempts, the more fuel injected, and some of this injected fuel finds its way down past the pistons and into the sump, mixing and diluting the engine oil. If the engine oil is checked regularly, and the level seems to be rising, thats an indication that all is not well with the DPF. A blocked or semi blocked DPF will make frequent attempts to clear itself, injection more fuel each time.

My DPF will regenerate driving around at low speeds, this idea that you need to redline the car for half an hour is not exactly true.

Yes, that was the thinking in the past, but with newer DPF's the thinking seems to have changed. They have to have improved the DPF design over the years, and once the conditions for regen are met, that's it.

Toyota have a dash notification on the Hilux I think.

I know my car is doing it if the idle speed is at 1000, and the oil temp goes up.

If it’s regenning when I stop I’ll take it for a spin, dip the clutch every now and again to check idle rpm. I’ll never turn it off if doing a regen (have actually done it maybe 5 times since 2019) Car has 230k now and DPF is healthy, had it checked on computer last year when doing other work.

I have a diesel smax as need 7 seats but recently I do very little mileage - only about 10k kms over last 12 months. However most journeys are long with many in excess of an hour with quite a few just over 3 hours. I'm assuming that low mileage in itself is not a problem so long as its made up of mostly longer journeys

Does the dash have an oil temp gauge on your car? Or how can you tell? With some cars, during a regen, say you stop to speak to some one and they are standing beside the car, and the engine is still running, its possible for them to feel the heat generated by the DPF. There is a scene in the Soprano's where Tony's son has his girlfriend in the car, and he parks in a forest area, with a carpet of leaves on the ground. A regen takes place, and it sets fire to the leaves ( and car).

Go on any Ford forum, and see what they have to say about regens, and if it's possible to monitor regens taking place, and how its done, or what to look for. Some cars show a higher than normal engine idle speed, and raised temp. It varies from vehicle to vehicle.

Have the same light currently flashing on the dash of my Mazda 6.

Same story as others have mentioned here with the mechanic telling me to take it for a long trip driving at high revs. It’s even mentioned in the manual to drive a 2500+ revs for a period of 20 minutes to fix the issue

Thing is I only use the car for commuting to/from work so between rush hour traffic, red lights, roundabouts and dual carriageway driving it’s rare that I’m driving at 2500+ revs. 

So question is do I need to continuously drive at 2500 revs for 20 mins and not dip below (like the Speed movies!) for the regen to kick in or would 4 or 5 days of worth of driving that way for 10 odd minutes a day do the trick?

If it has to be continuous driving at that rate then I’ll have to take the car out late at night because there isn’t a hope of getting 20+ mins on the work commute before something/someone forces me to slow and dip under 2000 revs. 

Just for a heads up this is the 3rd time I’ve had the light flashing, previous 2 times I brought it to the mechanic who cleaned the DPF for €80 which buys me around a year and a half before it will come on again, hoping to sort myself this time round for the cost of a few extra quid burning diesel at high revs!

As many have said already its ridiculous that, for something that's essential to the health of a modern diesel engine, no warning light exists to inform drivers that a regen is ongoing and not to switch off engine until complete

With odb readers and phone apps you can tell exactly when a regeneration is happening. Other quick ways are if you stop car and notice fans are still running it's likely regeneration was taking place, and it's now trying to cool down engine quickly to prevent fires as mentioned if ground is grassy it's a fire risk.

In terms of types of trips, as mentioned certain conditions need to be met for a regeneration to happen.

E.gn it won't start if not needed, if it has run recently.

It won't start if fuel is low, in case car runs out of fuel as it uses more fuel

It won't start if the system is faulty, if sensors give errors etc.

It may not try start until engine is warmed up which take take over 15 minutes. Many cars with a dog have a larger sump, meaning more oil than normal car, meaning oil takes longer to get to temperature.

Once regeneration starts, you don't typically need to drive "hard" or fast. The engine changes the air fuel to ensure higher exhaust temperatures.

The process stops if you turn off engine, bit will attempt again next trip. It also stops when the job is done or a preset time has passed and it gives up.

Eventually at 160,000km+ the dpf gets full with grey ash which can't be removed during normal regeneration process. Typically the best fix at this point is to replace dpf at a cost of 1000 euro.

Regular oil changes are important particularly on high mileage cars as the more ash In the dpf the more often it will regenerate as there is less room for soot. The oil degrades quickly, and may lead to engine failure. A blocked dpf can lead to early turbo failure due to back pressure.

If you are not doing 30 minute trips at least once a week I would avoid diesels.

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