Diesel particulate filters

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Nereus
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Diesel particulate filters

Post by Nereus »

Have any new diesel car buyers run up against these things yet? As far as I am aware Thailand is still stuck in Euro 4 or lower compliance laws. The latest diesel Land Rover is built to Euro 5 / 6 compliance and includes Adblue / DEF. When I asked the dealer about how they are complying with this, they told me they import the cars on special order from the factory without the Adblue system. This is more about the filter system itself, as explained in the link.

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/emis ... e-filters/

There are growing complaints in Australia about this filter system on new cars.
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by STEVE G »

Most of the vehicles we drive around at work have these filters and they constantly bring on warning lights due to becoming clogged from doing short journeys. That article above explains it all, you thrash the thing down the nearest motorway for about half an hour keeping the engine revs up and the soot gets burnt off. The only thing is, on some makes of vehicle the light doesn't go off when the filter clears, you need to reset it with the right software.
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by VincentD »

Yes, have seen the articles and some videos on DPF death and that the prevention really is to thrash them once a week or so to get it up to operating temperature and do it's job.

Never have been much of a diesel fan, but some of the more recent turbodiesel offerings are actually quite nippy.

Was also put off by false economy back then - Yes, diesel is cheaper, but once I had to transport something quite large that wouldn't fit in the Saab turbo, so used a Toyota Tiger 3.0 non-turbo pickup to do the job. The cost of the diesel from Bangkok to Chonburi and back was almost fifty percent more than petrol, and the pickup was a pig to drive. Back in the day when 95 octane benzine was almost twice the price of diesel..

They may be better nowadays, but with ecus,and other electronics they are beginning to get fiddly to use. Leave them in the heavy-duty trucks where they are best suited for purpose..

My opinion, your mileage may vary..
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by STEVE G »

To be honest, with normal usage they're not a problem at all but we are constantly driving very short distances around the airport, often no more than a couple of hundred meters.
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by Khundon1975 »

The wife has a Citreon 7 seater for nearly 3 years, due for change as it’s done about 25k miles. It’s Euro 6 compliant with particulate
filter. She only does short runs, around 20miles school run and never had to thrash the engine as light never came on. Difficult to rev the engine as it’s an Automatic EAT Electric gearbox and even using the flappy paddles it changes up before you can rev it! Just bought myself another Citreon, but that is standard automatic diesel but has the ADBLUE system, so not sure if that needs a blowout or not! Only done 200 miles, so will have to wait and see.
:? The adblue is sprayed into the honeycomb section of the exhaust to reduce one of the noxious gasses I think.
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by Gregjam »

I had a Peugeot 407 Coupe with the twin turbo diesel engine, same as in some Range Rovers, Jags etc fitted with a particulate filter and to be honest it was an expensive waste although better for the environment. It needed regular runs at a consistent high speed for about 15 minutes to regenerate or you would get all sorts of alarms coming up. I understand that in some European countries the car tax was reduced for vehicles fitted with this equipment but not blighty and because of a 1 bhp gain over the regular 407 it incurred double the road tax anyway.
I would say avoid at all costs if possible as the benefits do not outweigh the disadvantages. I wonder how many people went for a blast down the motorway just to regenerate their filter polluting unnecessarily.
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by Nereus »

Khundon1975 wrote:but has the ADBLUE system, so not sure if that needs a blowout or not! Only done 200 miles, so will have to wait and see.
No, the Adblue system is fed from a separate small tank, and you just need to top it up. If you allow it to run out it will firstly go into limp home mode, and then most probably refuse to start next time. It is a mixture of 35% Urea and water, but do not be tempted to try and mix it yourself.
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by Nereus »

Gregjam wrote:I would say avoid at all costs if possible as the benefits do not outweigh the disadvantages. I wonder how many people went for a blast down the motorway just to regenerate their filter polluting unnecessarily.
The problem is; you cant avoid it if you want to run a diesel. Like everything else now, it has electronic monitoring that will lead to the engine stopping if the filter gets too blocked up. And also like many other things, the greenies have got in on the act and it is an overkill and now PC!

Modern high speed common rail diesel engines are very fuel efficient, also forced into development in Europe over the past few years, by the green brigade. I have no problem with reducing pollution, but one thing they overlook is to re-generate the filter the ECU increases the amount of fuel being injected for however long it takes, so where is the gain?
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by Gregjam »

There is also, in the 407's case, a rather nasty chemical that is a fuel borne catalyst designed to aid regeneration of particulate filters fitted to diesel vehicles It was possible to remove the particulate filter and just put a through pipe but apart from modifying the exhaust this would involve messing around with the electronics to prevent the system going into limp home mode or shutting down. Perhaps not so easy on a newer vehicle and no doubt it would void the warranty. The chemical I am talking about (Eolys fluid, JLM PAT an alternative sells for forty quid a litre on amazon) was stored in a tank hidden behind the rear wheel arch lining and refilling it was part of the, I think, 10,000 mile service. A job not recommended or designed for the weekend mechanic to do.
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by J.J.B. »

Our Discovery has an AdBlue tank but I’ve no idea where you get the stuff from. According to the manual, it needs topping-up at such lengthy intervals that it is done at service time so perhaps I can safely ignore it.

I don’t like driving short journeys in diesel or petrol cars. Without getting the exhaust system fully up to temperature you can suffer from condensation collection in the silencers and I had one, on a previous mini, rust through.
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by Nereus »

J.J.B. wrote:Our Discovery has an AdBlue tank but I’ve no idea where you get the stuff from. According to the manual, it needs topping-up at such lengthy intervals that it is done at service time so perhaps I can safely ignore it.
The following is a discussion on the Australian LRO website, J.J.B.:

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/l462-discove ... lling.html
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by STEVE G »

There is another small point that has occurred to me, seeing as how these particles are produced by cold running, there should be far less of a problem in Thailand than we have in Northern Europe. We have a diesel Transit minibus here that just runs about 4km between two sites a couple of times a day on which the temperature gauge never moves off zero for months at a time in the winter.
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by Nereus »

Hmm, cannot agree with that, Steve. The diesel combustion process produces the particles, regardless of the operating temperature of either the engine or the ambient air. The problem is the filter will not re-generate until the exhaust gas reaches around 600 degrees C.
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by Khundon1975 »

Nereus wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:31 am
Khundon1975 wrote:but has the ADBLUE system, so not sure if that needs a blowout or not! Only done 200 miles, so will have to wait and see.
No, the Adblue system is fed from a separate small tank, and you just need to top it up. If you allow it to run out it will firstly go into limp home mode, and then most probably refuse to start next time. It is a mixture of 35% Urea and water, but do not be tempted to try and mix it yourself.
Yes Nereus, the salesman showed me the tank in the boot and told me not to bother with it as it’s topped up at service.
It’s only going to be a run around car for me (saves using a V8 for popping to the pub) and I doubt it will do more than 2k a year, that’s why we chose a diesel. Also, the guy in the dealership said they clean the filter out at the service, even if it doesn’t need cleaning and they reset the electrical sensors, so it won’t go into limp home mode. If we planned to do more miles in it, I think we would have settled for a petrol engine. Also, despite the high spec, we got over £6,000 off list price, so that clinched it for me. 🤗
We have ordered the replacement for the Citreon 7 seater and ordered a Peugeot 5008, but that is going to be a petrol engine, because it seems the government is starting to penalise diesel car owners, especially in and around London! with double the congestion/parking charges in the planning. 😡
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Re: Diesel particulate filters

Post by STEVE G »

Nereus wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 4:09 pm Hmm, cannot agree with that, Steve. The diesel combustion process produces the particles, regardless of the operating temperature of either the engine or the ambient air. The problem is the filter will not re-generate until the exhaust gas reaches around 600 degrees C.
With a cold engine and cold ambient air, fuel atomization is incomplete which produces more soot particles, I think it's something like a magnitude of two or three times from warmer conditions, there is plenty of research available on this, I'd send you a link if I wasn't posting from a small screen!
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