DPF Recycle

[StefRobinson]

For those of you with a new diesel car, how often are you finding the DPF goes through it's recycle program? You may notice the fan going full whack when you stop, a very warm engine, the stop/stop disabled, the odd smell of hot fluids etc.

I know this is a normal thing for the car to be doing, but how often should it be doing it? Does it depend on the weather, the number of miles driven, or how you drive and how much right foot you use etc?

Also, do you notice any pattern to when the car does it? Driving in traffic, driving with very low revs taking it easy etc, or does it do it after so many hours of running?

I've noticed mine has done it a couple of times recently. The first thing I notice is the start/stop suddenly stops working. Then when I get out, the fan is usually going hell for leather for a few minutes!

The car has only done 550 miles. It has been driven very carefully so far, to try and get as much economy out of the car as possible. Maybe that's related?

 

[monopole]

It has been driven very carefully so far, to try and get as much economy out of the car as possible. Maybe that's related?

Def related, but not sure about 550 m from new, I dont know much about DPF (yet!) But surely it takes much much longer than that!?!?!?!?!?

 

[Daveotto]

Have done around 1500 miles and only noticed it once, after about 350 miles.

I tend not to do very much in the way of short time/ distance journeys with typical journey lengths around 10 -25 miles, but do a mixture of driving, anything from crawling around London rush hour traffic for 90 mins or more or 70mph+ on motorways/dual carriageways.

I am sure I read somewhere, but not sure where, that the DPF can regenerate whilst you are driving so you may not even notice it but are more likely to notice it if you do a lot of short journeys when it us more likely to kick in once you have turned off the engine.

 

[StefRobinson]

Most of the journeys I do are 17 miles. Basically the run to work and back. I've noticed it once or twice coming home from work, which is downhill or flat for a lot of the journey, therefore a lot of coasting and minimum acceleration involved.

I've also noticed it on short journeys, around 7 or 8 miles, again where there was a lot of coasting involved. I've never noticed it yet going to work, where I have to accelerate up hills etc.

Maybe with journeys using more acceleration, it clears itself, and the recycle doesn't need to kick in?

 

[97catalunya]

I think you're right Stef, I don't have a TDI but on short journeys or tick over (coasting) is where the sooting up will occur the most. A good blast on the motorway where the exhaust will heat up will help to blast it out.

I have had a diesel before that didn't have a DPF and after a lot of slow town driving if I gave it a blast I would leave a big black cloud behind me where the soot had been blasted out! #embarrassing lol

 

[sftdi]

My previous car was an A1 1.6 TDI, which I owned for 2 years and I reckon it probably did a regen once every 7 days or so. It always seemed to be on my short journeys too which I found to be rather irritating. My commute of 11 miles was not enough for it to perform the regen and I reckon approx 16 miles driven quite hard would have cleared it. I did this a few times, just drove round booting it to clear the regen.

 

[rdgc]

I've recently got a new 2.0 diesel A3 and having issues with this, it's only done 300 miles over 5 days but i've had 3 regen's now after shutting the engine down with the fans loud and a burning smell, one after a 90mile motorway run as well... Dealer suggests this is possibly not "normal" so want to take it in for a few days, has anyone else seen that kind of behaviour ?

 

[StefRobinson]

I've recently got a new 2.0 diesel A3 and having issues with this, it's only done 300 miles over 5 days but i've had 3 regen's now after shutting the engine down with the fans loud and a burning smell, one after a 90mile motorway run as well... Dealer suggests this is possibly not "normal" so want to take it in for a few days, has anyone else seen that kind of behaviour ?

I've got a new 1.6 TDI S-Tronic and mine sometimes seems to go through phases, which I was wondering if it was down to driving style... It seems to do it more often when more coasting and driving with little throttle input is used on certain journeys. Apparently, this leads to more soot build up that needs to be cleared.

I recently had 2 or 3 regen's in only a couple of weeks. I've done about 60 miles since the last one, and so far this week it's all been fine and it hasn't done it again, and start/stop has been working all the time. My car has done around 600 miles now.

I guess different circumstances, styles of driving and varying degrees of careful driving and coasting etc. may cause it to happen more often for some.

 

[alphaj12]

I notice this relates to the newer models, what year did DPF's appear on these engines. Am I safe to assume that an 05/06 TDi will not have this feature?

 

[Twizzler]

This behaviour on the 8v cars is totally different to the 8p. My existing 170 is 6 years old and has only 22k on the clock, mainly local running. In this time I have never seen a warning light and have only noticed a regen 4 times. Just putting it into Sport mode and driving it at around 3000 rpm for a few miles was all that was ever needed.
If the new models are regenerating at this rate then those that are would appear to be defective, unless they are all doing it, in which case a change of regen strategy must have been employed by Audi. If the latter then I suspect an upgrade will appear soon to correct this undesirable problem.
I have a 184 on order for 1st March delivery. I hope Audi address this problem before mine is bolted together.

 

[cuke2u]

DPF regens are dictated by driving conditions, ie short journeys, or driving styles. As my previous, no-maintenance, coated DPF, diesel performed a regen very often, considering the mileage I'd done, because I only did a few miles a day and sometimes the car was barely warmed up. I used to just take it for a longer run once a month just to be sure. Perhaps Audi are erring on the side of caution...

 

[ivicyrusivi]

I have a 1.6tdi a1 and it probably regens once a week ish? It's not that it's kicking in when you stop, it's that it's cooling itself off after the regen.

The way i understand it, coasting definitely doesn't help. It relies on the engine being above a certain amount of revs/strain for a certain amount of time, in order for it to activate - hence why city driving is bad for it. I think they say constant ~40mph for 10 mins or so

I use the car on a longer journey (around 1hr motorway) once a week which does the trick, however i've had the dpf light come on when i didn't do any long trips for around a month

Gives you a good excuse to go for a drive

 

[Twizzler]

As a further thought to all this, given the new models are more fuel efficient and also have considerably lower emissions than the 8p I would expect the dpf to be less stressed not more.
Perhaps the latest dpf has a lower capacity.

 

[cuke2u]

Maybe, just as a update, regens are generated by the temperature of the engine, the exhaust and how much soot is detected within the dpf. It then forces the engine to run hotter, thus the exhaust gases are hotter, to burn off excess soot..

 

[Twizzler]

On the 8p the principal determinant for the need for dpf regen is the amount of blockage of the dpf as determined by the sensors and electronics.

 

[Daz Auto]

I've recently got a new 2.0 diesel A3 and having issues with this, it's only done 300 miles over 5 days but i've had 3 regen's now after shutting the engine down with the fans loud and a burning smell, one after a 90mile motorway run as well... Dealer suggests this is possibly not "normal" so want to take it in for a few days, has anyone else seen that kind of behaviour ?

I am a good little minion and did a search. This thread seems closest to our experience.

My wife's A3 1.6 TDI is just over a year old. Her commute is 30 miles and the car does around 20k per year.

The car has been doing even more miles than usual in the last week as a relative was in hospital. 5 additional journeys 90 miles each.

My wife says that the engine fan was going one day when she arrived at work during the week. She didn't think anything of it. So does not remember exactly when. When she arrived home on Friday I noticed the fan going. On Sunday we drove 14 miles to the coast. When we arrived the fan was going again. Then we drove 1 mile to my brothers house and the fan was going again.

Something is not right.

When we were at the hospital on Tuesday I took the car and filled it up at a Maxol station. This is the station I normally use when in that area. It is usually filled at Tesco's or Sainsbury's. It is due another fill soon. After it is filled we'll keep a closer eye on it.

Could it simply be a bad fill of diesel?

 

[RobIW]

In winter it comes on more than summer but I guess that's due to the engine taking a while to warm up when it's cold? It's about 12 miles to work and in winter I would say it kicks in at least once a week.

Also I find the car isn't as responsive when the DPF kicks in but I can never tell why it does. I might go for a good blast which the manual said to do on the way home and then in the morning it has come on when I've had a clean run into work.

 

[Snibo]

Try to keep the Revs at or above 2k in whatever gear you are in.
This will significantly reduce the amount of "parked up" regens experienced.


Edited: To change the word about to above.

 

[musicegbdf]

OK I have a 8p that is nearly 5 years old done 33K miles and used a lot on short journeys,
Have onlyever had one stationary de- gen. Have not noticed any other de gens other than a few times on a run it sometimes feels a little sluggish. Once after a long weekend away where I did two long runs of 125 miles each way , just 10 miles from home it went into limp mode. The garage cleared the fault and told me it was the EGR. Not happened since ....
That said doing the short journeys decied the only answer now was to order a petrol so explained to the wife we need a S3

 

[Vertigo1]

The fan running on after a journey was a constant issue with all my diesel A3s but noticably more so with the 8V than the 8Ps that preceded it.

I know that, in my case, it was exacerbated by my mainly short urban journeys but it became incredibly annoying. I live in a quiet area at the end of a cul-de-sac and, when the fan kept running, it made a right racket of which I was very conscious, especially in summer when people tend to have windows open.

One of the reasons I ditched diesel and I don't miss that infernal noise one bit.

 

[RobIW]

Is it worse on newer models due to having to make the engines cleaner these days? Never noticed it on other diesels I use and had in the past.

 

[Baldyone]

The diesel deffo makes a difference. I do a lot of short journey's but get good distance a few times a week. 17000 miles on the clock of my 2.0TDI and every fortnight or so I'll do a good 100+ miles motorway drive

When I fill with Tesco fuel my DPF will regen a lot, and I do mean a lot to a point where it became annoying. Premium BP and I maybe have it running over once a month. In the 17 months of ownership the Yellow warning light has only been on once and I cleared it no problem at all.

Im not paranoid about supermarket fuel and TBH couldn't care less where it's from but my car appears to disagree and demands the good stuff if I want to avoid lots off bbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhh kinda noise at the end of my journey.