How to make a dpf regenerate?
 

OK, my Corsa just cost me £882 for a new dpf and exhaust...and that was using non-VX parts.

I've just been let down by the local VX dealer who booked me an appointment yesterday to look at a newer car, then left me sitting 15 minutes, before I finally came home again! :mad:

So, question: How do I MAKE the dpf regenerate as my youngest, who has been doing 100 mile round trips on motorway every day, now refuses to drive the Corsa, and it's going to end up pottering round town:(

Make sure the ECU has no fault codes, the engine gets up to operating temperature and the exhaust gets above 400degrees. Also ensuring the fault that caused the previous DPF failure has been properly rectified.

You can also add a cerium-based additive to the fuel tank which can lower the soot burn off temperature which allows more passive regeneration at lower speeds.

My insignia regenerates at around every 300 miles, I do a lot of slow stop start journeys. Vauxhall told me to go on the motorway for a good blast and keep the speed over 40mph and revs over 2000rpm. Sure enough, it works. The car idles slightly faster and sounds different when it's regenerating.

Thanks Ali, no fault codes at present.
How will I know if the exhaust gets up to 400 deg? Is that Deg F or Deg C?

And what's this additive called please?

Remove it from the car, kick the crap out of it and stuff it in the bin...

What is a 'dpf' and why does it need 'regenerating'?

Sounds like a lot of hassle just to drive a car.

Is a Corsa worth 882 ?

It's a clever means of filtering out the particulates from diesel exhaust and keeping it out of our lovely environment, making the world a healthier, greener place and saving millions of lives..

Then when it's full someone can rip it out and chuck it away so all those particulates can be dumped together in harmony.

Or maybe someone can jet wash it out and all the crap can go down the drain.

Or if we're really lucky, your neighbour may remove his and smash the guts out of it with a hammer dispersing most of the particulates in a certain place and the rest the bin men can enjoy!

Such an awesome idea.

It's a bit like the government deciding we shouldn't dump in the toilets to prevent contaminating the water system. Making us all wear nappies so no **** goes down the sewers. Then we can chuck all the nappies in one place and it can all collect somewhere else.

400deg is Celsius. There is an exhaust temperature sensor, where a good OBD data reader can read live data to show this is happening...along with actual coolant temp...as the actual gauge is useless. That is if you have a reader at hand or can borrow one.

It can also show exhaust back pressure which is another handy indicator of the filter's status (the higher the reading the more its blocked; it should be near zero millibars at idle and around 10 to 40 millibar at 2000rpm fast idle ).

There are lots of additives out there the aid regeneration, we use either Forte or Wurth which isn't as widely available to the public. But the main active ingredient in most brands is the Cerium, so as long as it contains it the brand shouldn't matter. You'll probably find some stuff on the shelf in Halfrauds (Wynes, STP, Redex etc) labelled as DPF cleaner or restorer.

I wouldn't advise using it all the time; once every six months/3000miles or whenever you notice a problem.

Oops :o

Reason ill never buy another diesel stupid idea my mates corsa is the same and lying in vauxhall dealers yard as he wont pay( car 12 months old) so all that money you thought you had saved gets pumped back into to a filter lol

That's why I'm glad rather than pay well over £2,000 for a new one for my BMW I had the c*ny gutted and f*cked off :thumb:

See you in the " Before the courts" column in the Scunny telegraph soon, then?
LOL

I'm not from the eastern bloc.

Yep glad I sold mine 😌 nothing worse than finishing work at 6pm start the car and ding DPF warning light comes on.Arghhhh for feck sake 😩 now have to purposely drive on the motorway to clear this stupid fecking thing.btw you don't have to drive in 4th gear .can do a normal motorway drive and the DPF will clear after about 20 minutes.

A fiat diesel was never going to be a good idea in a vauxhall

Apart from the dpf...with which most diesels suffer, the FIAT diesel is a damned good engine.

We put ad-blue in the trucks at work, is it just
another version of that but with a filter?

That's basically p1ss

This is all missing the point slightly. Although you obviously wouldn't want to spread them on your toast or sprinkle them in your tea, diesel particulates aren't particularly toxic as such. The reason DPFs were developed and made compulsory is that particulates in the air have a damaging effect on people's health simply because they clog up the lungs and airways. Short of banning diesel engines for non-commercial vehicles entirely, or banning non-DPF fitted diesels from all population centers, DPFs really aren't a bad idea, if the human race is going to carry on using diesel-engined vehicles at all. It's just their implementation on some vehicles and the appalingly inadequate information provided on how to maintain them that tends to be a bit shabby and pathetic.

may as well rip its guts out and get it mapped ;) be cheaper and give more go as well :D

Except that MoT stations have ALREADY had the bulletins telling them to check that the dpf and egr are present and have not been tampered with, or it's an automatic fail.
My Scoob is enough trouble to get an MoT...I don't want another the same, thanks.

visualy not tampered with ;) they cant remove them

Correct, nice to see you back.

So they can't see that the dpf etc has been cut open, gutted and welded up again????

My local garage which is an MoT station USED to do that, now they won't touch them.

For the sake of £822, use another garage then. Why do you think I use who I do 30 miles away?

Depends on how they gut it...if the DPF is covered with a heatsheild, hidden by an undertray, or is tucked behind the bulkhead, then its difficult to see if its been tampered if its been done in a tidy manner. Also the tester needs to "know" it has one fitted...cars and small vans made as late as 2010 don't always have one fitted as standard. But have been fitted to cars as old as 2004 and older. The MOT tester's manual is vague at best in identifying which cars should have one fitted; as you can have two identical make and model of cars with diesel engines, but one can have a DPF and one won't...Jag X-type 2.2d and Seat Altea TDi are two prime examples I've seen.

However, if its been botched with visual bird-sh*t weld, it will be obvious its been tampered with. Although I don't think "dodgy welds on DPF" is a valid reason for rejection either. :lol1:

You have to remember this is a system where its designers intended for a black-and-white solution to a grey problem with only an average understanding of working on vehicles. You can't even put "screw in tyre" as a MOT advisory....the system thinks you are using profanities!!; Screw is in the MOT system's swear filter :lol1: :facepalm:

This is my saving grace. On the coupe (330d at least), they're a pain to see and access, so although labour intensive to remove/open/gut/re-fit, they're also hard to check if tampered with due to location and heat shields etc.

Which is nice :)

Yeah, but this is my point Andy.
I have a car which should pass emissions. I don't WANT to have to book a special, travel to it etc etc. I had enough of that with 200 mile round trips for the Scoob MoT.

As for £822, I would have been into all but £400 of that anyway: new exhaust, new intercooler, new air filter, labour etc.

How much would the removal, gutting, welding, replacement, remap cost? I bet I'd not have been far short of that £400 anyway?

NOW I know I have no worries again and any MoT garage can, and will, pass it.

Pass, as my car is a lot more pricey on parts. But you may have your car fixed, all legit, BUT you're in the situation (going on previous posts) that's it's gonna see very few long trips and more short ones. So it will simply clog up again in time.

Regards mine, it was approx £650 for DPF gutting and an Evolution Chips remap. Only smokes when I hammer my right foot down. I dunno for Vauxhalls, I don't personally like them having had a few Astra/Corsa courtesy cars over the years (that's my 'alcazar car luck' kicking in).

AHA!

Was the old one leaking?

If so, thats a major reason your old DPF failed...leaking intercooler = lots of soot as the MAF sensor is reading air that's just leaking straight back out again causing over-fueling. Where does that soot go? Into the DPF and overwhelming it before has chance regenerate.