DPF Failure at 90,000 km

[h100vw]

Mate, drop me a PM and book the car in over @ Kevin Dennis VW. There are ways in which the DPF can be triggered into regening. I don't believe it is full of soot as soot will only fill them after about 200k km. Ask them to give you a printout showing what the ECU is reading the soot and ash loading as.

You can see the loading with VCDS. instructions on Ross-techs website.

Gavin

[alexaescht]

Mate, drop me a PM and book the car in over @ Kevin Dennis VW. There are ways in which the DPF can be triggered into regening. I don't believe it is full of soot as soot will only fill them after about 200k km. Ask them to give you a printout showing what the ECU is reading the soot and ash loading as.

Soot is the stuff that gets burned off in a regen, it's ash that accumulates and cannot be burned off which forces the DPF to eventually be replaced. As I said above, it's all fixed for now. Thanks.

[Snail Style]

I know exactly what soot and ash are mate, i deal with dpf issues on a daily basis. Ash is a by product of the regen process that is why they give you an approx. Km measure of when it will be filled. It won't be filled after 90k if this is the first service regen that has been required.


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[alexaescht]

I know exactly what soot and ash are mate, i deal with dpf issues on a daily basis. Ash is a by product of the regen process that is why they give you an approx. Km measure of when it will be filled. It won't be filled after 90k if this is the first service regen that has been required.


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It's had at least one service regen before this one. I was assuming the active regens that happen automatically would not allow the soot to reach a high enough level to cause problems. In your post before this one you said it shouldn't be full of soot after 90k and I wrongly assumed you meant ash, as that's what can't be burned off. Sorry for misinterpreting you.

[Transporter]

I know exactly what soot and ash are mate, i deal with dpf issues on a daily basis. Ash is a by product of the regen process that is why they give you an approx. Km measure of when it will be filled. It won't be filled after 90k if this is the first service regen that has been required.


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Yeah. That should be the food for thought to you, mate.

[Greg Roles]

Get yourself a loaner Vag Com cable, and see if you can check around channel 068 under measuring blocks on the engine module like Gavin correctly suggests.

This will give you the ash load in grams, and you then need to find out what is terminal for your particular DPF. In the MKV and MKVI Golf / Jetta it's 40 grams. The same DPF can go about 400kms between regens new, and this reduces down as the core fills. If your core is close to failure you will see 50kms between regens, a bad sign. That said if you mess around with your EGR ( like vlock it off ) this messes up the regen cycle as it goes into MIL mode, and starts regular regens on distance rather than measurement. Too much regenning is hell on your oil amongst other things.

Differential pressure sensors are notorious for playing up on the various brands, this gives feedback as to how full a core is, I've been through three to get one that works well.

An alternative to ensure a good regen is to buy some Wynns DPF cleaner online, or find a similar CERIUM containing one, most DPF cleaners are just toluene / hydrocarbons, Cerium catalyst is what you want. This does however only get rid of the soot component, but utterly so.

Running incorrect oil ( 504 is the most important bit ) will kill a DPF in no time. So too, an incorrectly run in engine with lots of oil blowby further reduces lifespan. A Provent or similar catch can is a grand idea, for the Polo look into the BMW cyclonic one, quite compact and works OK.

Failing all that I see Western Filters in Sydney have just bought the full DPF reconditioning system, and they can get a core back to zero ash loading. I used a Karcher at 105,000 to backflush my own DPF core, and am now at 185,000 and the core has 7g ash in it, should get to 250,000 at this rate.

A solution to all DPF woes, whilst long promised is currently in testing. For now - measure it, recondition it, oil catch can, correct oils.

The best news is the current DPF's have never been better, it's the early MKV / MKVI ( on the polo ) that give the most issues. They will however all eventually clog, and the replacement from the dealers is friggen expensive.

[kaanage]

Western Filters in Sydney have just bought the full DPF reconditioning system, and they can get a core back to zero ash loading.

Quite a system too - link - I wonder how long it will take them to turnaround a DPF? And I wonder if they can recondition car air filters as well as industrial ones?

[Snail Style]

Wow that looks expensive..... You can actually just pull them out and spray a chemical in it(forgot what it was called), then just use a high pressure washer to blow it out. Just make sure your doing it into a filtered drainage system.

[Greg Roles]

Really, I did it with just water, and am plus 75,000kms now : )

It is incredibly painful to get the ECU loading value reset done properly though, I've spent a LOT of time frigging around with Vag Com settings, the reset process isn't straight forward, but that's as likely to be my particular car and the fact it's so far from stock.

If you look into eBay Europe, especially around Germany, there's plenty of remanufactured DPFs for about $700-$800 delivered for those people not wanting to wash out their own, or pay big dollars for a proper cook.