Help Please School me on the ways of the diesel

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mrming

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Just about to get our first Audi.

We’ve had petrol Alfa Romeos up till now. I had trouble finding an Alfa 159 Sportwagon in good nick and the A4 B8 Avant caught my eye.

So we took the plunge and we’re picking up a used example next week.

It’s a 3.0 TDI Quattro Avant SE. Our first Audi and first diesel.

My other half does short trips in town during the week, and we usually do at least one 30-60 minute longer journey at the weekend, driving 50mph plus.

Is that enough to keep the DPF on the 3.0 from getting blocked?

Any pointers much appreciated!
 
I'd be sticking petrol. You aren't getting the benefit from a diesel engine doing so little miles a week.

What I'd be doing is an A6 Avant 3.0 TFSI supercharged engine from a S4 :)
 
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Darren92 said:
I'd be sticking petrol. You aren't getting the benefit from a diesel engine doing so little miles a week.

What I'd be doing is an A6 Avant 3.0 TFSI supercharged engine from a S4 :)
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Perhaps that would have been wiser, but the deed is done now! :)
 
The 3.0TDi will be a little bit thirsty on the round town trips, but it's got a nice amount of torque so it'll be fun to drive. I enjoy my 3.0TDi Quattro A6 a lot and yours will be a little lighter so even more fun


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Steveredman said:
The 3.0TDi will be a little bit thirsty on the round town trips, but it's got a nice amount of torque so it'll be fun to drive. I enjoy my 3.0TDi Quattro A6 a lot and yours will be a little lighter so even more fun


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Yep the torque is quite something. The cabin is slightly better quality than the Alfa too.
 
So you buy into diesel when everyone and their donkey is getting out of Dodge? Short trips when the engine hasn't warmed up isn't good. Old school diesels were fine. Hell, you could run it on vegetable oil and run a can if Forte through it prior to MOT, but those days are gone. Now you've got glow plugs, DPF, EGR to think of.

My advice is to run it at least a couple of days for a 80-100 round trip, preferably boot it on hill climbs.
 
I've got a similar car and it's very good. Its around 10 years old with 110k miles on it and causes very little bother.
Weirdly the DPF regen seems to happen after long steady motorway runs rather than stop start stuff, for my journeys I probably get one about every 5 tank fulls or so. I've seen an app you can get which tells you how much soot is in the DPF, this may be worth getting if you are going to be interrupting regens regularly.
 
I've got the 2.0 tdi 170 and had it for a couple of years now. I do short journeys in it and twice a week take it on a 30 mile round trip and not had any issue with it at all.

Obviously I've a smaller engine to yours but again I've had no DPF issues or EGR valve issues.
 
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spartacus 68 said:
So you buy into diesel when everyone and their donkey is getting out of Dodge? Short trips when the engine hasn't warmed up isn't good. Old school diesels were fine. Hell, you could run it on vegetable oil and run a can if Forte through it prior to MOT, but those days are gone. Now you've got glow plugs, DPF, EGR to think of.

My advice is to run it at least a couple of days for a 80-100 round trip, preferably boot it on hill climbs.
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Yep sounds daft when you put it like that. It was a bit of a twisted chain of logic that got me there. Basically the A4 was the only car in budget I liked other than the Alfa 159. I didn’t fancy the TFSIs of the era with the potential oil usage issue. Started looking into the most reliable B8 engine and ended up at the 3.0 TDI.

Owyn + Leyton388 - good to hear you’re not having trouble. I’ll need to learn to spot when it’s doing a re-gen.
 
mrming said:
Yep sounds daft when you put it like that. It was a bit of a twisted chain of logic that got me there. Basically the A4 was the only car in budget I liked other than the Alfa 159. I didn’t fancy the TFSIs of the era with the potential oil usage issue. Started looking into the most reliable B8 engine and ended up at the 3.0 TDI.
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The 3.0TDI is a good choice. Regular oil changes with Castrol Edge or similar every 10k miles, and no reason why you should have issues.
 
spartacus 68 said:
The 3.0TDI is a good choice. Regular oil changes with Castrol Edge or similar every 10k miles, and no reason why you should have issues.
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I agree, you pretty much know when the car is doing a regeneration too, indicated by an idle speed 200rpm higher than normal and a louder exhaust note. When this happens keep the speed above 40mph and the revs above 2000.
 
I've had my A4 Avant 2.0 tdi quattro almost 12 months now and I've never seen it do a regen to this day....that said , all I do is motorway miles, 80 a day during the week and the odd bit of town driving at weekend, I guess that's enough to keep the regens away... although my wife has the same engine in her A3 and that never gets on the motorway and barely gets warm with it's short jouneys and that's never regened either other than me forcing it too with VCDS when we first got it.... sorry for hijacking the thread but I'm interested , how often do your diesels go into Regen ??
 
I have the 3.0 v6 ccwa A4. I do 200 mile motorway trips twice per week and round two. And not seen a regen. What’s this app ?
Mines just coming up to the 100k been told be worth sticking a new maf in soon. Did my first top up with millers so wait and see on that


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Gooders said:
I have the 3.0 v6 ccwa A4. I do 200 mile motorway trips twice per week and round two. And not seen a regen. What’s this app ?
Mines just coming up to the 100k been told be worth sticking a new maf in soon. Did my first top up with millers so wait and see on that


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It's pretty difficult to tell on the CCWA, apart from the louder exhaust note. On the CAPA engine the throttle response is dulled.
 
Mine is a ccwa with tiptronic, the gearbox gets quite choppy when it's doing regen, that's how I can tell .
 
I've had my '09 A4 3.0 tdi for just over 5 years now. Its nearly at 100k now.
I bought it to do long miles but then started working closer to home so only ever do short trips in it now.

I've not had a single issue with the DPF. It regens every once in a while (you can tell because the performance becomes muted) but I've not had any warning lights or anything like that.
The DPF is situated in a really good place on the 6 cylinder diesels, directly behind the engine so it gets hot quick. I dont think these engines are known for DPF problems at all. Keep up the oil changes and its a very reliable engine.

The only issue I have had with the engine is the swirl flap rods wear and causes an engine light. I got the revised parts from Audi (about £20 for 2 when I bought it), fit them and not had another problem
 
Thanks everyone. I have the car now - it’s an 08 SE Quattro, manual with 74k on the clock. Standard suspension which is spot on for our extremely potholed local roads. Having a lot of fun driving it - holy moly it goes on the motorway. :)
 
For what its worth get the android app vag Dpf and a Bluetooth dongle. I plug it in say once a fortnight. If its showing anywhere above 70% full I take it on a bit of a run and watch it regen. For the £1 odd the app costs its well worth it
 
Seanchadwick2k3 said:
For what its worth get the android app vag Dpf and a Bluetooth dongle. I plug it in say once a fortnight. If its showing anywhere above 70% full I take it on a bit of a run and watch it regen. For the £1 odd the app costs its well worth it
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Sadly I’ve just had my first warning light on the dash (flashing glow plug) less than one week in. No loss of power or any other real symptoms.

Have ordered the Carista adapter so I can read the codes, will then most likely introduce myself to my local specialist.

Gotta love secondhand cars - spent years sorting all the electrical gremlins on my Alfa GT and now will be selling it so someone else can benefit! :/
 
Could be something minor, carista is pretty good, got it myself about a month ago. Post up your scan results and im sure people on here will be able to give you advice. Maybe something straight forward you can sort yourself.
 
The light came on after I stalled and restarted (not used to how quiet it is yet).

Went for a drive this evening and all was well again - no light.

Will read the codes anyway - presumably the error will be there.
 
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Good to hear, last thing you want is faults showing up on a car you just bought!
 
If you stalled and restarted the engine then the fault logged will be related to that and nothing to worry about. Great choice of car mine is is a 2008 SE 3.0 TDI CAPA . I never had any issues with the DPF when I had that on the car. As stated above the DPF is located right at the back of the engine close to the turbo so if you do a lot of motorway miles it will do a lot of passive regeneration so will rarely need to do an active regen. A remap makes them a lot more lively, and a hybrid turbo even more so :).
 
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8 months on the car’s been good. Had a couple of fixes - broke a coil spring at the back, and the rear wiper motor died. Other that that it’s had a service and it’s doing a great job of whisking the family round in comfort. Apart from the decent turn of speed, my favourite feature is undoubtedly the 4WD. We live in a pretty rural area and there’s not really anywhere I wouldn’t take it. Minor additions have been a full bootliner from hatchbag.co.uk, various covers to stop the kids destroying the seats, a £10 Bluetooth / FM transmitter and a phone holder. Oh, and some new floor mats. With mixed town driving and longer trips we’re getting about 400 miles on a tank of diesel. Does that seem about right for the 3.0 TDI?
 
spartacus 68 said:
So you buy into diesel when everyone and their donkey is getting out of Dodge? Short trips when the engine hasn't warmed up isn't good. Old school diesels were fine. Hell, you could run it on vegetable oil and run a can if Forte through it prior to MOT, but those days are gone. Now you've got glow plugs, DPF, EGR to think of.

My advice is to run it at least a couple of days for a 80-100 round trip, preferably boot it on hill climbs.
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All diesels have glow plugs???
 
I get 400-430 miles to a tank on mine. Thats on mostly short runs of 10 miles or less. On longer runs I could probably stretch that to 500 miles on a tank.
 
desertstorm said:
I get 400-430 miles to a tank on mine. Thats on mostly short runs of 10 miles or less. On longer runs I could probably stretch that to 500 miles on a tank.
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Okay good to know thanks. Yeah we got nearly 600 to a tank on a run down to the med coast of France and back during the summer. We were cruising at some pretty decent speeds too.
 
RS4B5 said:
All diesels have glow plugs???
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I know RS4B5, I should have made it clearer. For those who buy into diesel, say from a petrol car where changing spark plugs are routine, say every 25-40k miles. Come to diesel, then glow plugs should be good for 100k miles, but advice is to change them at 80k. I've had wiring faults before to the glow plugs, and removing glow plugs can be like playing Russian roulette if they are seized. You can check electrical resistance, but I clean them as part of periodic maintenance every 2-3 years as they do get light carbon dusting, plus just good to check they aren't deteriorating.

Consensus is to soak in a little engine oil or PB Blaster a week before attempting job, then run car to operating temperature. Always use hand tools. If they break, it's head off time. Just making an observation.
 
There is a grease/lube that is used to install them to help prevent them getting stuck in the head.

I did them myself when I first got my car as 2 were showing faults. I used the grease and correct torque settings and had no problems when I come to remove them a couple years later for replacements.

BERU glow plugs(OEM Audi) and the installation grease.
 
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