Hi All
I'm a newbie to the fiat 500 world. I absolutely love it apart from the dpf!!
I bought my 500 a couple of weeks ago and it started smoking last week. it doesn't smoke all the time, mainly after I've done about 5 miles on the duel carriage way, presumably getting it up to temperature, and even then it doesn't smoke all the time.
where I work we have a diagnostic computer, no codes are coming up but when reading the dpf it says it is working fine. its 25% clogged up, did it's last regeneration 6 miles ago lasting 423 seconds. now this is the part I can't get my head around, it tells me that the last 5 regenerations have all been done 29 miles apart. Why would it be doing the regeneration every 29 miles?? is this normal?
any help would be appreciated
Thanks
Linzi

How many miles a week do you do and what is you average speed? My VW TDI regens once a week (~200km) but averages only 27km/h.

I don't think a faulty DPF will cause continous black smoke, I think you have another failure (like an injector pump etc), that's causing excess soot which is clogging the DPF every 29miles.

Thanks for the reply i do about 30 miles a day. Roughly 8 miles of this is above 30. It only smokes after I come off the duel carriageway, for about a mile and then it's fine again. Just confused as to why it regenerates every 29 miles

Re 29 miles, it may be restarting it its not completed the regen in full (normally if only just started and switched off) and then regenning again at the next possible opportunity to complete this, which is normal, and would bring down the average distance between last 5 regens.

Just because its smoking doesn't mean its regerating, and normally shouldn't smoke all that much.

I'd just drive it for a few weeks and see if it clears itself, it may have been sat un-used for a while, doing only short journeys hence clearing itself out.

Aahh that makes sense about the average regeneration miles. Thanks for your help. I'll see how I go with it. I took it for a half an hour blast yesterday and I think it completed the regeneration, this morning it didn't smoke once so I'll just keep an eye on it for a couple if weeks

I always used to stick a bottle of DPF cleaner in my old car when it looked like it wasn't doing full regens (esp in the winter) and then take it for a nice long drive, is always handy to keep a bottle of it to hand!

On my newly acquired 500s diesel it's done 235 regens in 60000 miles i.e. 255 miles between them whether that becomes the norm now it's mine time will tell

notsmartcars said:

On my newly acquired 500s diesel it's done 235 regens in 60000 miles i.e. 255 miles between them whether that becomes the norm now it's mine time will tell

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Well that is an old post revivied.
Longer runs with exhaust up to temperature will reduce the number of regenerations required. This is because more particulates will be "burned" by the catalytic action of the DPF with out additional fuel being required. And less particulates generated in the first place.

Robert G8RPI.

notsmartcars said:

On my newly acquired 500s diesel it's done 235 regens in 60000 miles i.e. 255 miles between them whether that becomes the norm now it's mine time will tell

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That's about what our 95hp does in the Qubo, have about the same mileage too. Never a problem with it so far as regen and egr are concerned.