Having owned two cars with DPFs for over 5 years, my 10 pence worth is: don't worry about it.

My daily commute is 3.5 miles to work, and 3.5 miles back home. I often go a couple weeks without doing a journey of longer than 10 miles. According to DPF nay-sayers, my car's engine should have either grenaded or at least had major surgery for DPF replacements by now. I've had zero problems.

I don't mean to mock those have had experienced DPF-related issues, of course these do happen. But that's not been my experience, and I would bet it's not the experience for a majority of owners of DPF-equipped cars.

The MD of my company is one of the most mechanically inept and unsympathetic people I've met, as far as cars are concerned (he misfuelled his Jeep 4x4 TWICE in a year, necessitating new fuel pumps etc) but he never had a DPF problem with that, or with his current Audi A4. His daily commute is even shorter than mine.

Also i feel that dpf aside that diesels cope with short journeys better than petrol due to the lack of water given out by diesel hence being better for the exhaust and also diesel contains more lubricating properties than petrol and hence doesn't wash the bores as much as petrol on short runs.I might be wrong about the above but my previous petrol car was a nightmare for reliability where as the diesel has been faultless.

Good point.