DPF warning light on.

[Fatbloke]

Hi All

My 150 Quattro DTI has done 13,000 miles and the DPF warning light came on. It seems to do a regen every few days to weekly.

It spends a lot of time every week cruising up the motorway or along A roads so not sure why this has happened.

I took it for a run up the motorway and the light has now gone off but I am not best pleased at having to waste time and fuel to do this.

Any idea how to prevent this or is there an issue?

Cheers

Dave

 

[cuke2u]

Sounds like normal for a diesel, I had to do the same when I last owned one and the reason why I don't own one now...

 

[Retroman]

Not normal for a modern, common rail diesel with only 13,000 miles on the clock. The DPF should be as clean as a whistle and doing natural regens with the usage you describe. I'd get it checked.

 

[davemk]

I've got a PD TDI which has a DPF fitted. In 76k miles, the light has come on twice; one of those times was a faulty EGP sensor.

 

[Retroman]

Diesels across all manufacturers have got better with their DPFs since they were introduced over 10-years ago. The early problems were concentrated on non-common rail engines which were not designed to produce the heat necessary to burn off the soot and some manufacturers actually positioned their DPFs too far away from the engine. All this tended to give DPFs a bad reputation as did catalytic converters when they first started fitting them to cars many years ago. I've never had a DPF warning light come on in 87,000 miles and I only do about 7,000 pa these days.

 

[Fatbloke]

Will get it checked out along with notchy gearbox and sticking handbrake etc. Will call Audi today.

 

[Lawrence Ellul]

I have a FL 2017 A3 1.6TDi and had this warning come up twice. The car has less than 7K miles on the clock and the warnings cropped up in the last 1.5K miles. I attributed this to traffic. Until the end of September I never encountered it but come October, the traffic increased significantly due to schools. In both cases the DPF warning cropped up after spending time in the traffic and basically could not satisfy the requirements for regen. Now what i'm doing is that when I know that regen is occurring I try to as far as possible drive with the revs around 2K as much as possible. Since then I did not have any further problems. In Malta we don't have highways so I try to do my best. Once the warranty is out I'll surly do a DPF delete but that is in a few years time.

 

[Fatbloke]

Called Audi this morning. My case is logged and I will get a call back in a couple of days.

 

[Rideen]

I have a FL 2017 A3 1.6TDi and had this warning come up twice. The car has less than 7K miles on the clock and the warnings cropped up in the last 1.5K miles. I attributed this to traffic. Until the end of September I never encountered it but come October, the traffic increased significantly due to schools. In both cases the DPF warning cropped up after spending time in the traffic and basically could not satisfy the requirements for regen. Now what i'm doing is that when I know that regen is occurring I try to as far as possible drive with the revs around 2K as much as possible. Since then I did not have any further problems. In Malta we don't have highways so I try to do my best. Once the warranty is out I'll surly do a DPF delete but that is in a few years time.

Exactly the same here. Had a 20 minute drive up the mountain last night because my DPF was trying to regen for 2 days now. No warning light though but whenever I see the rpm randomly increase I know it's DPF trying to regen.

Next car is a petrol.

 

[richinsoton]

Not normal for a modern, common rail diesel with only 13,000 miles on the clock. The DPF should be as clean as a whistle and doing natural regens with the usage you describe. I'd get it checked.

That depends on the age really, which we don't know potentially it's 2012 car in which case 13k over 5 yrs would likely bring on a DPF warning whereas if it were 13k miles & 6 months old then I'd say that's unexpected.

 

[Kingfisher]

Have you had the factory mod for the fuel efficiency fiasco? It may have been into the dealer for something else and they just do it.
There is apparently huge agro over the whole issue.
Daughter found herself in this situation, dealer wouldn't or couldn't put it back, there were several others in the dealers complaining about no power, constant regen .
She spoke to Shark Performance ( she lives in that area) they rolled it back - plus a bit more and she says it's back how it was, regens ionly when it needs it plus goes much better and is more economical as well, 140 A3 TDi .
Apparently there's a group on Facebook about it all.

 

[Carefree69]

My previous 2.0 TDI CR had 39,000 miles and only did a regen every few weeks. I'd get it checked.

So glad my new car is petrol.

 

[Fatbloke]

That depends on the age really, which we don't know potentially it's 2012 car in which case 13k over 5 yrs would likely bring on a DPF warning whereas if it were 13k miles & 6 months old then I'd say that's unexpected.

It's a 2016. Just over a year old.

 

[Fatbloke]

Have you had the factory mod for the fuel efficiency fiasco? It may have been into the dealer for something else and they just do it.
There is apparently huge agro over the whole issue.
Daughter found herself in this situation, dealer wouldn't or couldn't put it back, there were several others in the dealers complaining about no power, constant regen .
She spoke to Shark Performance ( she lives in that area) they rolled it back - plus a bit more and she says it's back how it was, regens ionly when it needs it plus goes much better and is more economical as well, 140 A3 TDi .
Apparently there's a group on Facebook about it all.

If you mean the emissions scandal, I was under the impression this engine variation is not affected by it. It is a bit lacking in power right enough.

 

[DrEskimo]

A3 1.5TFSI S-Tronic
RRP = £28,405
Valuation after 3yr/30k miles = £13,455
30k @ £1.18 per litre (average for 2016) assuming 35MpG on average = £4,598
Total cost = £19,548

A3 2.0TDI S-Tronic
RRP = £29,855
Valuation after 3yr/30k miles = £13,880
30k @ £1.20 per litre (average for 2016) assuming 45MpG on average = £3,636
Total cost = £19,611

Really don't get the argument for diesels for anything below 20k miles a year...

 

[Fatbloke]

A3 1.5TFSI S-Tronic
RRP = £28,405
Valuation after 3yr/30k miles = £13,455
30k @ £1.18 per litre (average for 2016) assuming 35MpG on average = £4,598
Total cost = £19,548

A3 2.0TDI S-Tronic
RRP = £29,855
Valuation after 3yr/30k miles = £13,880
30k @ £1.20 per litre (average for 2016) assuming 45MpG on average = £3,636
Total cost = £19,611

Really don't get the argument for diesels for anything below 20k miles a year...

Interesting comparison. Amazing the figures are so close. Suppose it depends what type of driving you do. So far on a decent run I get around 50mpg and expect it to go up as I put miles on it. I like the torque on the diesel. Diesel engines also last longer if keeping the vehicle for a while and produce a third of the pollutants of petrol engines. Diesel isn't loaded with benzine. May consider a petrol next time but in the meantime I have a bike for petrol head fun.

 

[DrEskimo]

Interesting comparison. Amazing the figures are so close. Suppose it depends what type of driving you do. So far on a decent run I get around 50mpg and expect it to go up as I put miles on it. I like the torque on the diesel. Diesel engines also last longer if keeping the vehicle for a while and produce a third of the pollutants of petrol engines. Diesel isn't loaded with benzine. May consider a petrol next time but in the meantime I have a bike for petrol head fun.

Sure, actual MPG might be higher, but it’s the difference between the two that’s important. The rated MPG based on the NEDC run for the 1.5TFSI is 57 and for the 2.0TDI is 64, so while achieving these in real world is nigh on impossible, it shows the relative difference between the two if driven the same way on the same journey.

If anything suggesting it’s 10MPG is over optimistic, so savings probably lower....

Agree with the longevity of the engine, although I’m sure the irony of talking about reliability in your own thread about having DPF issues after just 13k and 1yr isn’t lost on you... It’s the DPF and EGR reliability that would put me off...

Also not sure I agree with the pollutants comment? Although maybe because I’m not sure exactly what you mean? The EU6 limit for diesels for NOx is 0.08 and for Petrol is 0.06. If anything the pollutants are a third less for petrols...? Obviously if we are talking EU5 and the whole dieselgate scandal, then the EU thresholds are meaningless for diesels as they couldn’t achieve those in the test, let alone real world (and in actual fact, even a lot of EU6 diesels still produce 8x higher emissions in real world...)! But that is for another thread...!

Anyway, my point was that diesel tends to be the choice for economic reasons. Obviously if you prefer it then it doesn’t matter, but if it is for economics, it really only make sense for 20k+, particularly when you factor in the operation of a DPF.

 

[Rideen]

Where I live diesel is the obvious choice bearing in mind that petrol is 60% more expensive per liter. About 90% of population drives a diesel even though we don't have highways simply due to the fact that petrol is so damn expensive for unknown reasons.

 

[Ormesome]

Where I live diesel is the obvious choice bearing in mind that petrol is 60% more expensive per liter. About 90% of population drives a diesel even though we don't have highways simply due to the fact that petrol is so damn expensive for unknown reasons.

Was gonna say exactly the same thing but you beat me to it!! In the countries where I drive a lot (France, Spain, Italy & Portugal) diesel is so much cheaper, sometimes 40cents cheaper per litre. If you have a diesel then 1 fill up could save you 20euros compared to a petrol & thats without taking in to account the extra MPG. The economics argument works very very well outside of the UK, but if you are based in the UK then it would be hard for me to justify getting a diesel car at the mo (car size depending).

2nd hand car prices in most countries in Europe iv lived in are through the roof, sometimes double prices of UK & it seems that diesel cars haven't gone down in price yet unlike from what iv read about the UK's 2nd hand market (although I don't know if thats just newspaper talk).

Also I think deals like PCP/Leasing etc make it easier to make a decision in the UK... From my knowledge, people in the EU see PCP/leasing deals as false economy, mostly because they keep their cars for a long time & see if as a5-10yr investment & also because the 2nd hand market is so strong. My 3yr old 1.6tdi is worth around 20k in Portugal. Prob half that in the UK. These good 2nd hand residuals, the fact that people keep their cars for so much longer & that diesel is sometimes 40cents per litre cheaper, still make diesel a great prospect.

Anyway, re: the DPF. Had plenty of diesels, never had a DPF warning light. I drive loads of short journeys, feel the fan coming on and hear it after I switch off the car sometimes too, maybe once every 2weeks max. I prob drive around 10miles per day and it has a small part of motorway, maybe 5 miles of it, whenever the car is warm, or iv driven a bit further , I just floor it and make sure revs are around 3k. Iv had her for 1.5yrs and only done 17k in her so defo not diesel territory but I think its about how you treat her. Incidentally I had a Mokka before the A3, 1.7cdi, bellowed smoke out the back every few days and had to keep driving. nightmare car & system, literally couldn't see cars behind me because the DPF region created so much smoke. The A3 has been amazingly reliable apart from the odd embarrassing looks of friends when they get out the car & it sounds like she's gonna blow up! My view would be that either you have a problem with the DPF or you aren't driving her correctly.

 

[Gazwould]

Dpf is a flawed system it requires everything to be perfect even if the driving is correct , the maf , dpf pressure sensors , egr , intercooler pipe work all have to be 100% , the slightest split / leak in the intercooler pipe work causing the mixture to be rich thus more soot can cause havoc .

 

[Kingfisher]

Far too much real world information and logic for a lot of UK buyers........
interesting figures though. I've always thought that for relatively low mileages petrol was much more suitable for most UK drivers. The minute the Governments start tweaking the various tax regimes it always goes pear shaped