Hi All

Just serviced a 3 year old VW 1,6 Tdi Touran with 21360 miles all done around the doors. The DPF was at 29.4% so we forced a regen and its now 2.8%

My question is due to the problems these things give, did we do the right thing? and should a forced regen be done at service time ( if needed) to ensure reliability.

Steve Sneap

We always look at the soot content on all services, and if around 50% we advise the customer to take it on motorway. Many say can you do it for me which adds an extra half hour on their bill.

Keith

Hi Steve . Hope you changed the oil after the regen and not before. Personally I would not do a forced regen unless as a last resort. At 29% I would leave well alone.
Regards
Les

Hi Steve,

I am with Les on this, advise customer,I hate forced regens and would never do one as a routine service job, too many things that could go wrong with a perfectly presented car to you for service,the oil dilution is also a very valid point, how do you then explain that the bl**dy thing has self combusted !

Debatable point about changing the oil and filter ,Taking the above car, if that has tried and failed to complete its own regen then the oil could allready be compromised. At least with new oil and a forced, but completed regen this must be better than the car leaving us then trying and failing to do its own regen.
Due to the brutal nature of a forced regen on some (jtd for example) we insist on oil and filter change before doing so and inform customer of the dangers. This Touran revved to about 1800rpm for about 20 mins
Steve Sneap

Hi Steve, on Autologic & the VAS dealer tool it gives the parameters for forced regeneration prior to carrying it out.
There is an additional warning on both tools stating that carrying out forced regeneration below the advised parameters results in premature ageing of the DPF & advises not to do it.

Presumably this is due to the particularly aggressive nature of a forced regen causing thermal ageing to the washcoat & substrate?

With VAG common rail there are a lot of software issues around DPF regenerations failing/ stalling, Pressure senders & egt sensors giving issues, not to mention the common failure of motorised EGR & manifold flaps & worn cams on PDs.

My opinion for what it is worth, is to leave well alone until a warning light is flagged as you could make a very expensive rod for your own back if a forced regen fails due to issues elsewhere in the system which have not yet come to light.
A car which comes in with a moderately high loading & advice given to the customer to give it a run is a prettier alternative than a car which came in with no light on, but after a service & forced regen is now in limp home & requiring diagnostic time to determine where it all went wrong?

The Common Rail is prone to quite high levels of oil dilution during a forced regen, so possibly a good idea to consider the oil before & after a forced regen as high levels of oil dilution cause further issues.

Just one opinion feel free to disagree & say where I may be wrong.

Did A Mazda 6 on request from local mot station ,has to be carried out post oil and filter change and takes 34mins, quite a lot of worried glances at gauges,and revs at 3200 at one point.soot count fell from 86% to 3%

I've had just one of these Mazda 6 diesels through the doors.
I seem to recall these suffer massive amounts of oil dilution having a pair of maximum oil level marks on the dipstick?
One for after an oil change & one where the maximum permissible oil dilution has been reached, which is a considerable way up the dipstick from the fresh oil change mark?

Sounds like the same,looked like massively over full ,oil change warning on dshs and dpf fault logged

Wonder if some has ever "not checked the oil" before starting a forced re-gen.

Got it up to 3000rpm and it has run-away on them.

Not funny!

I had a six cylinder lorry engine run away on me in workshop once. I nearly Sh## myself!

We use the TUNAP kit now, much easier and quicker than running a regen and no need to take the car on the road in most cases.

Has saved DPF,s that were too blocked to run a regen on as well.

Approved and used by 18 of the manufacturers we were told:

Andrew

Is there a UK supplier?
Regards
Les

Hi Les, yes there certainly is.

The rep for your area is Martin Stoddart, his number is 07896-169344.

Regards, Tony

Cheers

Hi gents,

We run a fleet of over 1600 vehicles mainly mercs VW and fords, we use bg products in all of our vehicles at service time and have reduced our downtime on DPF issues.
We also have the bg products DPF cleaning tool for when things get serious! and have managed to save some very blocked systems successfully.

Hi Colin, yeah its a good tool, is it the new BG tool or the older one you have?

Regards
John

It's the new 9300 tool with the new chemistry, highly recommend it.

We also have some larger Mercedes that have been fitted with LEZ exhaust systems which again we can service without the need for the filter to be sent away for baking.

Hi Colin,

We have the 'old' BG VIA tool and had the new 9300 demo'd the other day, I like the way you can get the DPF up to soot burning temp at fast idle and keep control, the Vitara we used I had already done a forced regen on it so that wasn't really too blocked.

I was monitoring the diff pressure with the Pico & WPS it would be nice to do another blocked one and witness the point when it unblocks and see the pressure quickly fall.

Holy crap 1600!! I bet you get a blocked DPF job every other day!

R