Diesel Particulate Filter Nightmare

[SueDPF]

Can anyone help with advice regarding a living nightmare with my new A4 cabriolet which has required roadside recovery 6 times now since I bought in June last year? I am at my wits end with it - Audi have offered me an A5 cabriolet to replace it - however snag is that comes at a price of £10,000 more for less spec as my car is of a high spec. I am a town driver and was not advised that this DPF would become a huge issue for me!

[martin1810]

I can't speak for your audi but I know that some cars can have the dpf system disabled. I doubt a dealer will do this. Might be worth ringing a specialist and asking them if they know anything. If the car is under warranty you might not want to try.

[VWSmudge]

DPFs can be a nightmare for drivers who normally do short journeys around town. The temperature doesn't get high enough to burn off the particulates, I think this is called 'regeneration', or something like that.

I've read about this on a few forums now. Dealers really should point this out when selling a car, but I suppose that could end up costing them a few quid...

[Wooffy]

A lot of manufacturers are printing the regeneration procedure in the user handbook in an attempt to bypass warranty claims for DPFs. They are claiming that to regenerate it prior to complete failure is down to the driver/owner. As well as printing that the vehicle should be driven on motorways at higher revs more frequently.

[RickT]

This is a massive problem with a lot of cars out there..

I was the overt day online, a X type Jag over who lives in London is having to replace the DPF and top it up every 500miles due to the short stop and start driving.

The advice he was given by the dealer is to do a 40 minute drive per full tank!!

The BIGGEST problem is that dealers are not telling people they need to do x amount of miles at least to clear it out otherwise there will be issues,.

I will try and find the thread!

Rick

[asalhan]

Hi Guys,

I bought an Audi A3 2.0 TDI (170), not even 2 weeks have gone. On Friday it came up with the dreaded "Particle Filter" error on the dash. The picture made me assume it was exhaust related. I went home and looked it up in the manual..."Drive your car for 15-20 mins in gears 4-5 @ 60km/h" ...YAWN

Anyway I didnt think that this would be such a big issue until I read up about it on this forum. People have had to take cars in to Audi and the £2000+ bill for replacing one makes me shiver.

I didnt really use the car much on Saturday and after spending like 3 hours reading forum articles I decided to get the car and take it on the motorway. I live in the midlands so and the M5 J1 is the closest to me, so I decided to go southbound. I was just approaching J3 with the light on, the warning light went away, the coil warning light flashed 5 times and then stopped. I drove back up to J1 and came home.

Is that normal? or should I expect a nasty surprise anytime soon?

Also some people mention removing the offending part out of the car altogether, as pricey as it seems (up to £700) it might save hassle, fuel and a £2000+ bill in the future.

Hope this helps someone in anyway...probably not

Thanks

[chrislake90]

hello guys i work for volkswagen as a mechanic.
you should of been told that the car has a dpf when you bought it . you have two choices now.

1. Drive your car pretty hard for about 10 mins a week. this will burn off the stuff that builds up in there

2. you can get something to replace the dpf now . i read it in vwdriver so it might be worth looking that up

[asalhan]

What could replace a DPF? if its cheap then I'm up for it, I'll be having a look into that.

[chrislake90]

http://www.dpfremoval.co.uk/2-0-tdi-...t-bypass-pipe/

This is the first thing I found on google but I'm sure if you type in the engine you have say for example Audi 140 diesel dpf replacement you will fond what your looking for. And if your local to kebabs need it done don't hesitate to give me a shout

[chrislake90]

Kebab? Stupid iPhone. Meant to say if you are local to me