[coolboy007]

I was going through my 2021 CRETA'S owner manual and saw this page depicting the SELF REGEN procedure for clogged DPF. Since mine is a diesel version and the DPF may get clogged in future, i have bookmarked the information to be used for future. This is done only when DPF warning illuminates and car requests for it. If i ever need to use this, would update the thread. This is a screenshot from the procedure, please refer to owner's manual and follow all precautions before attempting this.

[Fastdriver]

Now, it is difficult to choose diesel over petrol especially if one predominantly drives in city. I have to re-think of going for Ford Freestyle/Ecosport diesel due to DPF/Adblue woes, coming from i10's trouble free experiences.

[Fastdriver]

Originally Posted by Nikhil Beke

It's been more than one year since BS6 field become available, has anyone's frequency of DPF regeneration gone down since the introduction of former? I have booked Ford Freestyle TDCi BS6 and would be using it for City use as well as for highway use (150-200km) once in 2-3 weeks. Any worries? Specifically, Would I be needed to plan separate highway trips, specifically to let DPF regenerate? Sounds fun in the initial years of ownership, but as someone has pointed out above- may get tiresome later.

Same questions are coming to my mind. As I have decided to change my old workhorse i10 Sportz Kappa2 sooner or later, I visited a Ford showroom here in Guwahati to enquire about the Ecosport diesel and specially DPF regeneration. The sales executive told me that he had come across only one owner who had faced the need of DPF regeneration. He has also told me that DEF is not needed in Ecosport. But DPF regeneration appears to be an impediment for a person who is used to hassle free experience of a naturally aspirated petrol motor.

[SansGT]

There are unverified reports on Youtube that Ford is currently delaying diesel deliveries because they are tweaking some software related to DPF. They have received a number of complaints and that's why this step. Someone I spoke to, confirmed that he has got a similar response from Ford as well as his dealership that this is a DPF related issue and all 2021 cars will get the fix.

The below article also hints at the same.
https://www.motoroids.com/news/repor...y-a-few-weeks/

[ramzsys]

I don't think there can be any 'fix' to this. Open up the EGR of any 50k done diesel engine (bs4) and you can find it clogged with carbon deposit. Such is our traffic and driving patterns.

Unless one is going to be on the highways most of the time, don't go for a diesel. Riding the torque maybe addictive, but the additional maintenance packages that come with a bs6 isn't worth it, in my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

[PrideRed]

Originally Posted by ramzsys

Unless one is going to be on the highways most of the time, don't go for a diesel. Riding the torque maybe addictive, but the additional maintenance packages that come with a bs6 isn't worth it, in my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

This is true for smaller cars or cars with smaller engine. For bigger cars especially SUV, diesel is still preferred one. The petrol options are weak and gas guzzler.
Again turbo petrols are as expensive as diesel to buy.

[Col Mehta]

Hello dear fellow members,

We have recently booked Sonet GTX Plus diesel AT and this whole DPF thing is in our mind ever since. It's a bad dilemma to have - the new diesel engine comes with potential DPF related issues whereas the turbo petrol AT has potential DCT heating headache. After rounds of discussions and test drives, we finally booked the diesel AT for my son who would replace his 6 year old petrol manual Grand i10.

As there are quite a few instances of people facing issues with DPF, we decided to talk to the service team to understand where it really stands. So we happened to speak with one of the service managers in Kia who was very knowlegable and patient with our queries and updated us that Kia has recently made some "logic level" changes in the system which has resulted in lesser number of DPF getting clogged. He didn't have the specific percentage or number but he did say that the number of DPF related complaints has gone down drastically.

One more interesting thing which he mentioned that most of the fuel stations are still selling mix of BS4 and BS6 diesel. Some of them sell really bad quality diesel which is also one of the reasons behind DPF clogging. I thought BS4 diesel was phased out completely to make way for BS6? Does anyone know if this information is 100% correct?

Edit: The service manager also mentioned that the Sonet has self regeneration option for DPF. Can any current Sonet diesel owner confirm this?

Thank you.

[Dr.AD]

A great thread and thanks @audioholic for sharing your knowledge on this complex topic!

Originally Posted by audioholic

• How is the exhaust after-treatment handled in your car? What system(s) is used.
• In your driving experience with the car, has the car required any manual regen? Or has it just been like driving any other car?

Now please pardon my basic questions regarding the above two points you mentioned. Your post and the points started me thinking and I realized I do not know about how this happens in my car.

My car is a 2017 BMW 320d (with B47 engine). This is technically not a BS6 vehicle and it does not use AdBlue. However, I think it still as a DPF and is practically same as a BS6 car but without AdBlue treatment. Please correct me if this understanding is wrong.

I mostly drive on highways, and do a lot of highway drives. In-between the highway drives the car is usually just parked. I rarely use it in the city.

1. So far, I have never seen any regen message/alert/warning in my driving of 40,000km. So does that mean the car does it automatically without telling me about it?
2. My car does not have any switch/button for regen. So how would one do a manual regen?
3. You mentioned that your car does auto-regen every 200km or so. How do you know that? Is it possible that my car also does that but I never noticed it?

Thanks in advance to you and the other experts for your help!

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

My car is a 2017 BMW 320d (with B47 engine). This is technically not a BS6 vehicle and it does not use AdBlue. However, I think it still as a DPF and is practically same as a BS6 car but without AdBlue treatment. Please correct me if this understanding is wrong.
!

I am not sure about the way the implementation is done for BS4 standards. If the engine was originally built for Euro 6 then it would have both DPF and SCR but since then India still had BS4 standards, the Adblue or SCR system would have not been provided. If so you would have had to fill adblue now and then. But for BS4 standards, that isnt required. However to remove DPF isnt an easy job and hence that would have made its way into your car as well, but I am not very sure how the setup is. To answer your questions to the extent I can,

1. So far, I have never seen any regen message/alert/warning in my driving of 40,000km. So does that mean the car does it automatically without telling me about it?

Most probably yes. If regen happens on its own, manufacturers do not provide any visible warning or indication. Thats the normal process and it doesnt warrant a warning message on the cluster. So if your car really has a DPF, then all the while regeneration has happened in the background as you drove.

2. My car does not have any switch/button for regen. So how would one do a manual regen?

Not every car with DPF would come with a manual button. It depends on the manufacturer. German cars especially do not need this due to the driving conditions. In case of the Toyota, it was added as an option for cars which would see mixed usage. I believe in Australia automatic regen was also not enabled because cars there are driven on patches of road with dry grass or off the road which would cause a fire hazard due to the exhaust getting pretty hot during regeneration. Some cars might have it in the vehicle maintenance tab, but that depends.

3. You mentioned that your car does auto-regen every 200km or so. How do you know that? Is it possible that my car also does that but I never noticed it?

In my car, during regeneration, it is felt by an increase in idling speed in neutral which makes the engine noise higher. While in D, the creep is stronger because of engine running richer. There is noticeable drop in FE after start. The turbo whistles lightly even as low as 1100RPM in neutral when regen happens.

This happpens for around 5 minutes or so in City traffic. Only once, regen started after a drive in ghat section and I let the car idle for five minutes and it was finished. Hence, going by the refinement(or the lack of it) of the Innovas GD engine, I can easily know when the regen happens. Even dad came back one day telling me that the engine idle speed suddenly became high for a while and I explained that its normal.

Maybe your BMW is too refined for you to not notice when this happens, or DPF has always regenerated during your highway drives where you wouldnt have noticed the difference.

[d3mon]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

1. So far, I have never seen any regen message/alert/warning in my driving of 40,000km. So does that mean the car does it automatically without telling me about it?

2. My car does not have any switch/button for regen. So how would one do a manual regen?

3. You mentioned that your car does auto-regen every 200km or so. How do you know that? Is it possible that my car also does that but I never noticed it?

1) Yes, regen is done in the background. You can only notice it by connecting an OBD scanner which shows Regen active status / Exhaust temp going to 500-600C.

2) Apps like BimmerTool / Bimmerlink allow you to request regen manually. However this will still only be done while in motion, not idle. These tools will even show you the average regen interval, and total regens done in your car during the lifetime!

3) Yes, regen in my car happens around 250-300KM. It's supposed to be transparent to the driver - why should the driver be bothered about it if there's no need?
There are two stages of error codes - first stage is a silent error logged in the ECU if the soot threshold is exceeded slightly, but the driver is not warned about it. If the DPF is not cleaned up with a regen and the soot threshold exceeds a second level limit, the driver is shown an error message and regen is blocked, as regenerating with a severely blocked DPF is a fire hazard. In this case, a visit to the service center is required.

The car does pause regeneration if you slow down to below ~30KM/h to let the EGTs cool down if you need to switch off the engine, otherwise switching off the engine at 600C EGT will not be too good for the turbo

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

I mostly drive on highways, and do a lot of highway drives. In-between the highway drives the car is usually just parked. I rarely use it in the city.

Was casually browsing through Fastag records and realised that over the last 14 months of having the car, it has done 42 highway trips and 81 toll booths. Makes an average of 3 highway trips a month. And with 9k kms of use, I can say the car crosses a toll booth every 111.1kms of driving. So with this number crunching, I can say that maybe that's what would keep the DPF working normally without requiring us to manually regenerate so far.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by audioholic

Not every car with DPF would come with a manual button. It depends on the manufacturer. German cars especially do not need this due to the driving conditions.

In my car, during regeneration, it is felt by an increase in idling speed in neutral which makes the engine noise higher. While in D, the creep is stronger because of engine running richer. There is noticeable drop in FE after start. The turbo whistles lightly even as low as 1100RPM in neutral when regen happens.

Thanks. Now that I think of it, I do sometimes feel the car revving a bit higher than normal on occasion. Maybe it is the regen happening that time. But again since the car does not give me any warning or message, there is no way to know. Also, these occasions are certainly not once every 200km. They are very rare. Maybe in my 40,000km of driving, I felt this higher RPM phenomenon about 5 times. It is possible that I just did not notice it the other times.

Originally Posted by audioholic

Was casually browsing through Fastag records and realised that over the last 14 months of having the car, it has done 42 highway trips and 81 toll booths. Makes an average of 3 highway trips a month. And with 9k kms of use, I can say the car crosses a toll booth every 111.1kms of driving. So with this number crunching, I can say that maybe that's what would keep the DPF working normally without requiring us to manually regenerate so far.

That is a lot of highway driving. Even in my case, I usually go out on 3 or sometimes 4 highway trips each month. Mostly my weekend drives or at least a quick breakfast drive of around 150km on a weekend morning. So I get plenty of highway driving and get chances to push the car well on these drives too.

Originally Posted by d3mon

1) Yes, regen is done in the background. You can only notice it by connecting an OBD scanner which shows Regen active status / Exhaust temp going to 500-600C.
....

There are two stages of error codes - first stage is a silent error logged in the ECU if the soot threshold is exceeded slightly, but the driver is not warned about it. If the DPF is not cleaned up with a regen and the soot threshold exceeds a second level limit, the driver is shown an error message and regen is blocked, as regenerating with a severely blocked DPF is a fire hazard. In this case, a visit to the service center is required.

The car does pause regeneration if you slow down to below ~30KM/h to let the EGTs cool down if you need to switch off the engine, otherwise switching off the engine at 600C EGT will not be too good for the turbo

Great! Thanks a lot d3mon for this valuable information. So looks like due to my highway drives, the car does regen on its own and so far it never reached a stage where it had to warn me. Good to know this :-)

[MSC]

My car - Hyundai Venue 1.5 Crdi, May 2020 model.
Total log till now - 20000 kms.
DPF warning- None till now.

Out of these 20k, almost 19k has been on state Highway and as I live in Himachal, the drive consists of frequent uphill climbs in second and third gear. The uphill climbs usually keep engine RPMs high enough to maintain sufficient temperature in exhaust to burn out the soot.
I was a bit sceptical when I started using Addon diesel additive in fuel but that too didn't bothered even once.
I was also a bit in doubt in last winter as in cold and almost sub zero temperature, the exhaust will invariably take longer to heat up. But in those subzero temperatures also, Venue came out unscathed and without any warning.
My daily 70 km drive, (35 km one side) consists of a small patch of under construction Manali-Chandigarh four lane patch of roughly 5 kilometres which is immediately followed by a 15 kilometres uphill climb. On the four lane patch, I just make sure that instead of shifting to fifth or sixth, I keep driving in fourth gear at 2000-2200 RPMs. This 5 kilometres high RPM run is sufficient to heat up the exhaust and then the uphill climb helps to clear off the soot.
This slight alteration in my driving habits plus the uphill climbs are usually good enough for me to be away from DPF clogging.
Also, since Venue 2020 model doesn't has a self park regen mode inbuilt ( which you can start by meeting some criteria simultaneously like warm engine, ac on full blast, rear defogger plus full beam headlights) like new generation Creta or Sonet, the only option left for me would be to drive at high RPMs or visit service station where they hook up a laptop or tablet and give command for DPF regeneration via OBD port.

[tilt]

Originally Posted by mankuthimma

*SNIP*

Holding onto this 100 kmph/2k rpm for a long time itself is a challenge on our highways. Also, havent see engine temp needle cross the 50% mark. In the Italian tune up videos, the cars are driven at really high rpm! Not sure, whether my driving style + AT is conducive for DPF regeneration ?

Originally Posted by Bibendum90949

*SNIP*

Yes even on highways in real world conditions, 25 minutes on the trot above 2000 rpm means we'll have to be steadily doing 100 kph and above which doesn't happen often. But I guess these aren't exactly strict conditions for regeneration.
*SNIP*

It is not about speed, it is purely about RPMs. Even in an automatic (that has a pseudo- or real manual mode) it is possible to keep the RPMs up at a lower gear and therefore a lower speed. You can do it even in a crowded city, no need to go to the highway.

Originally Posted by steadfast

*SNIP*

Since all DPF cars are new right now, many owners are enthusiastic about DPF and are happy to ignore any inconveniences. But as cars become 2 years old and a user becomes carefree about his/her car, the DPF process will become a headache and a pain.

*SNIP*

Er... my car is a BS4 diesel that has clocked 1.09 lakh kms, and is over 5 years old. Zero problems with DPF. Never had to pay it any attention whatsoever. It is like the projector operator in a movie theatre - just works automatically in the background without even an indication that it is doing its job.

Originally Posted by PaddleShifter

*SNIP*

I live barely 500m from my work place and fear of leopards make me take the car daily, else would have taken the walking route.

*SNIP*

Heheheheheh - I have heard a plethora of reasons to buy a car, but this one is the absolute best in the world - this post needs some genuine worldwide exposure

Originally Posted by audioholic

*SNIP*

When the Adblue level reaches 2400kms to empty, we get a beep and a message on the MID, which says that the level is low and has to be refilled within 2400kms. This warning can be cleared and will pop up every time the car is started. But the good part is the actual distance to empty is updated as we continue driving, which indirectly acts as an Adblue level indicator.

*SNIP*

I will fill Adblue after checking with the service center how much quantity is actually left and also with a scan tool so we know when its correctly filled.

This is interesting and I have a point to make, and a question: In the DEF section Mahindra Thar user manual it says that 20 liters is the maximum amount of DEF to be filled; and it gives a dire warning that filling more than that will result in serious problems with the car.

So, is there any way that overfilling can be prevented and a way to know exactly how much DEF is actually needed? Say, like the auto-stop mechanism while filling in fuel, would it not be nice to have something similar for the DEF tank too? I could find no info in the manual or in any thread/post here.

Yes I could always buy a ten-liter can and use that completely, but I am the type who always fills fuel to the auto-stop point and would find it convenient to do the same to DEF, especially considering the dire warnings.

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

*SNIP*

Now please pardon my basic questions regarding the above two points you mentioned. Your post and the points started me thinking and I realized I do not know about how this happens in my car.

*SNIP*

Your car (and mine) are BS4, no DEF, only DPF, and neither of our cars ever shows any DPF info the MID. Everything happens automagically in the background. No need to worry at all.

Like others here have said, even if a regen is needed without any high-rpm drives, it does so while idling or while normal slow driving by itself. You yourself have noticed sudden unexplained higher-than-normal idling RPMs - that's the only indication we have.

Our cars do not provide any way to manually regen because it is not needed.

Cheers

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by tilt

This is interesting and I have a point to make, and a question: In the DEF section Mahindra Thar user manual it says that 20 liters is the maximum amount of DEF to be filled;

So, is there any way that overfilling can be prevented and a way to know exactly how much DEF is actually needed? Say, like the auto-stop mechanism while filling in fuel, would it not be nice to have something similar for the DEF tank too? I could find no info in the manual or in any thread/post here.

Wow 20L of DEF capacity is a lot. I have only seen 12-15L at the most in the cars I have come across. The DEF hardware is completely non metallic since it's corrosive and hence manufacturers do not provide auto cutoff mechanism to the extent I know. Even in German cars the instruction is to fill a certain quantity of DEF when the warning symbol appears. If the car has a DEF level indicator, this can be used but only after accounting for the delay in the updation of the level after filling. The other way is by using a scan tool which would provide the actual DEF level without much of a delay. To avoid all this hassle, and considering it is only done once in 8-10k kms, manufacturers just specify a quantity that can be filled and leave it at that. During the service of my Innova, those chaps at the ASC were negligent and while topping up DEF to the brim, they ended up spilling a bit which I was really unhappy about.

So from then I decided it's better to have DEF filled to less than full tank than to avoid overfilling or spillage since this is not good.