DIESEL PARTICULATE FILTER - Problems...

[volvo_saint]

http://rsw.beck.de/rsw/upload/NJW/OLG_Stuttgart_Dieselpartikelfilter.pdf

This is a german courtcase where a motorist had a ZAFIRA and after 14 visit to the dealer to fix his DPF problem he demmanded the full price back.

He won his case as the court ruled that the car was unsuitable for urban use and therefore was not suited for the purpose it was bought for.

Unfortunately the link is in German....

 

[B3NNETT]

" As with most cars, will only perform in certain conditions and people never bother to check what those conditions are "

Such comments coming from the people who are 'techies' on motor cars are really most helpful.

They assume that the general public has the same level of knowledge as they do.

To repeat - I am not an expert of DPFs - when I bought the car NO ONE at the FIAT dealership told me that this car is unsuitable for urban traffic.

Neither does the user manual mention that you are excluded from driving in urban traffic.

jon(MEP) iirc is not a 'techie on motor cars' infact doesnt even have a diesel with a dpf fitted, yet still has enough common sense to check things out,

imo if you dont fully and i mean fully research a car before you buy it i.e search the web, forums etc for all little niggles, strengths and weaknesses, you have no one to blame but yourself!

so what you need to do is stop trying to palm of your own foolishness onto the dealer and admit you made a misstake and live with it. if you really cant sell the car and buy a small 1.2 engine suited to the type of driving you do.

 

[D4nny8oy]

Just a question re fiat dpf - is there a 1st warning light to say dpf regen needed before both the dpf and eml come on ?

Kind-of-

The following is lifted from more than one Service Bulletin available to Dealers on the subject of DPF, but it's clear from some posts that some staff are not fully aware of these and/or are not passing relevant infomation onto customers. There's much more data than this but a lot of it is not necessary for a general understanding of the system and what to expect during it's operation.

Regeneration will usually occur every 800-1000km but may be as regular as 400km under certain conditions. During regeneration you may notice a higher than usual idle speed, operation of the cooling fan, slight increase in smoke emissions, and high exhaust temps- these are not to be interpreted as 'faults'.

The lifespan of the DPF is typically 250,000km though this can be reduced by driving style/oil consumption/engine faults etc.

Operation of the DPF lamp does not indicate faulty operation of the vehicle. The lamp comes on to indicate to the driver that the DPF requires time to regenerate and that the engine should continue to be run during this time, after which the lamp will go out. The ideal conditions for natural regeneration are a speed higher than 60km/h at about 1800rpm and will take approx. 10mins, although the chances of maintaining this will obviously depend on road conditions- as long as the engine continues to run, the DPF will perform its cycle. Interrupting the procedure by switching the engine off will cause the DPF lamp to remain on.

Regeneration can be carried out with the vehicle stationary although the amount of fuel needed to keep the exhaust temps high means that regeneration will be stopped after 3.5 minutes to prevent excessive oil dilution.

If the EFI ECU is interrupted it will attempt regeneration upto 6 times before it decides the only course of action is a forced regen by the Dealer and to indicate this it illuminates the EFI (MIL) lamp.

When this occurs the Dealer will need to check various parameters are within range (including checking cam profiles, injector shims, thermostat opening, oil level etc) then perform a forced regeneration- if the filter clears ok, then the vehicle is returned to the customer. If however the blockage is unable to be cleared to a satisfactory level despite all other components operating within spec, and Fiat Technical agree, then it will be necessary to replace the DPF.

Hope this helps.

The Service bulletin I lifted this info from has a FAQ section which can be shown to customers, though most of the info is in the post above.

At the end of the day, as you have proved with a little detective work, DPF faults are not confined to Fiat alone, and with Euro4 and 5 regs requiring the use of a DPF, any new Diesel car you buy will have one.

Don't blame Fiat, blame Al Gore and the Hippies who want to save the Polar Bear.

If your Sedici failed a forced regen, then I'd expect the Tech's to follow Fiat's tried and tested DPF diagnostic procedure to the letter and check everything. I had a Sedici waaay back that would go through the regen procedure but would flag-up a "DPF blockage" error soon after. After following the checklist I found a hairline split in the intercooler which, despite making no noticeable difference to the engine running, was affecting the efficiency of the regen procedure and cocking everything-up.

 

[T14086]

They assume that the general public has the same level of knowledge as they do.

Dont have to, but reading the owners manual sure does help

To repeat - I am not an expert of DPFs - when I bought the car NO ONE at the FIAT dealership told me that this car is unsuitable for urban traffic.

The car is perfectably useable for urban traffic, hence used by taxi's

I checked the Suzuki Forum for problems on DPF - and this was a comment from a VITARA Diesel owner:

Suzuki use different DPF system so not relevent here infact i'll stick my neck out here & say Fiats is the best of the bunch, the problem is mis-understandng of the system (i.e. pub talk!)

jon(MEP) iirc is not a 'techie on motor cars' infact doesnt even have a diesel with a dpf fitted, yet still has enough common sense to check things out,

imo if you dont fully and i mean fully research a car before you buy it i.e search the web, forums etc for all little niggles, strengths and weaknesses, you have no one to blame but yourself!

so what you need to do is stop trying to palm of your own foolishness onto the dealer and admit you made a misstake and live with it. if you really cant sell the car and buy a small 1.2 engine suited to the type of driving you do.

:yeahthat:

 

[T14086]

save the Polar Bear.

polar bears are cool:worship:

 

[Most Easterly Pandas]

jon(MEP) iirc is not a 'techie on motor cars' infact doesnt even have a diesel with a dpf fitted, yet still has enough common sense to check things out,

imo if you dont fully and i mean fully research a car before you buy it i.e search the web, forums etc for all little niggles, strengths and weaknesses, you have no one to blame but yourself!

so what you need to do is stop trying to palm of your own foolishness onto the dealer and admit you made a misstake and live with it. if you really cant sell the car and buy a small 1.2 engine suited to the type of driving you do.

:worship::worship::worship::worship:

When I looked at Stilo I had a base knowledge about them but spent the best part of a week on here asking questions before I decided to finally buy it and done about 25-30 hours of research in that week!

OP how many hours research did you do?

I've just spent a large sum also getting my car convirted to LPG. Again done a hugh amount of research before even getting a price to get it convirted. This research involved web and phoning several companies thoughout the country.


And OP, again, as we've said, this car isn't unsuitable for urban traffic! It just needs a decent run once in a while, say once a month or so (don't hold me to the exact period inbetween long runs).

 

[D4nny8oy]

polar bears are cool:worship:

Penguin's hate them though-



I've not nothing against them.... just the people using them as an excuse to raise the price of petrol.

 

[Rothy]

The same thing happened when I had a PUG 307. I used to do a lot of motorway driving so the particulate filter couldn't have been blocked. In the end found out to be some sensor that was the problem, I think it was actually in the filter.
The advice for the PUGS from their forum was to thrash it in third gear for about 10 miles.

 

[T14086]

lol great picture Danny

 

[volvo_saint]

Update:

Got the car back after 2 forced regenerations - was charged 55 pounds.

The car is working now but the mananger told me that FIAT is aware of this problem. I asked him how long the car would drive before the DPF would shut down the car - he said 'now we will see'.

Not very encouraging. I will now look for signs of above normal fuel consumption increase due to back pressure of the DPF. The DPF put the car off the road after 2,500 miles after a 2,000 mile continental journey.

Will also check with the local trading standards office to see what their take on this is...

 

[T14086]

not being cheeky or trying to hide anything but what problem? sounds likesensor fault on your car as have come across that but never came across DPF fault that could not be sorted.

 

[pondweed]

Reading this, it makes me more clear that what is needed is a web list somewhere for cars without dpf AND dmf - by being shrewd, you can pick the cars with "less technology" ergo less likely problems for normal use.

This is getting harder year by year, but 70 bhp Mjet has neither, thankfully. I'm presuming an '05 115 JTD doesnt have a dpf.

The lower bhp diesel cars are better in this respect - the higher bhp mjet in a 500 DOES have a dpf.

Thinking that cars are there as anything else but a means of a manufacturer clawing back as much cash from you before you get rid of it seems a bit rosy, these days. They are all too desparate for continued sales to look for rewarding brand loyalty, sadly.

 

[oldoiler]

That is good for you - when I bought the car no one advised/warned me that it is not suitable for town driving.

And guess what? On the Fiat.co.uk website there is absolutely no indication that the Sedici Multi-Jet Diesel is not suitable for town driving.

If this is a know problem as you imply then why is there no mention of this on the official FIAT website?

It is a COMMON problem across ALL manufactures due to the EU rules, when I purchased my SEAT Leon there was no mention of sort runs - it came out a year later!! - so much for the environment lobby, which I do support but when this regen uses more fuel !!@@~~! some how I think we have lost the plot.

 

[oldoiler]

I agree with most of what your saying but , when these DPF's first came out very very little was known of the down side and the full implications of the EURO4 rules [ speaking from the VAG Marque experenice] Peugeot costs are even worst at around £800 to top up with the special fluid

 

[T14086]

I think some facts are needed here!

DPF's DO NOT USE fluid!

FAP's use fluid & to completely refill is about £160-170 MAX

DPF's are there for a reason & with even stricter emission laws coming in on 2010 there will be even more DPF's on diesels (if not the majority) and at the end of the day these DPF's are needed to pass these emission laws like it or not.

 

[Most Easterly Pandas]

Hang on, have I missed something?

WTF are FAP's

 

[T14086]

Hang on, have I missed something?

WTF are FAP's

On ulysse (peugeot) nothing else fiat.

 

[Most Easterly Pandas]

On ulysse (peugeot) nothing else fiat.

Oh right.

Ta.

 

[Citizen Smith]

I think some facts are needed here!

DPF's DO NOT USE fluid!

FAP's use fluid & to completely refill is about £160-170 MAX

DPF's are there for a reason & with even stricter emission laws coming in on 2010 there will be even more DPF's on diesels (if not the majority) and at the end of the day these DPF's are needed to pass these emission laws like it or not.

It will be in the future that if your driving requirements do not match that of a diesel with DPF, which all will have in time, that petrol will be the option that you will have to go with tbh.

 

[rallycinq]

Many many years ago I worked in London for a week at a show. My local colleague used to drive from one side of London to Earls Court and back every day in his Vauxhall Cavalier 2.0 carburettor petrol.

On the Sunday morning town was quiet, and the show opened later, so we took his car for a run up the dual carriage way to clean it out. The amount of carbon visible in the exhaust fumes was astonishing.

Its not a new phenomenon.

Cheers

SPD