2012 VW T5 California - The Curse of a Diesal Particulate Filter

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Tue 26 Aug 2014 08:12
2012 VW T5 California - The Curse of a Diesal Particulate Filter - measwade

I am now suffering the curse of diesal particulates. I am just about to have the garage clear the filter for the third time. The actions recommended in the handbook are not clearing the problem for very long, last time less than a week from it being cleared by the garage. so several questions:

Have VW recognised this problem and come up with some longer term solutions?

Is there an approved fuel additive I could use?

What is the future for DPF are changes on the way?

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Tue 26 Aug 2014 09:41
2012 VW T5 California - The Curse of a Diesal Particulate Filter - skidpan

Have/had 2 cars with DPF's and never had a problem, they just regen when needed. We don't do the type of mileage that some doom mongers say you need to to prevent issues but on the BMW and Kia regens, whilst annoying at times are at roughly the same intervals and trouble free.

If you have a DPF issue within a week of it supposedly being cleared by the garage then I suspect that the garage is simply ripping you off and just pretending to do the work.

There are 100,000's of thousands of cars on the road with DPF's and only a very tiny minority have issues. Most of the those are caused by really inapropriate use and the rest are probably down to the DPF being either knackered (they do block eventually with ash) or the worng oil being used in the engine.

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Tue 26 Aug 2014 10:30
2012 VW T5 California - The Curse of a Diesal Particulate Filter - RobJP

Some manufacturers seem to have had good DPF designs from the start - BMW and Kia being two of the good ones. Our mileage is fine for DPF, but my mum, who's last car was a 116d, had no problems at all, even though only doing 20k in 3 years (I'd recommended she did not get a diesel, but she likes the torque on them, compared to petrols). However, her new car (2013 Golf 1.6 diesel) has already had to have 2 VW dealer regens carried out, with 11k on the clock.

Now, I'll entirely accept that a sample size of 1 is not in any way representative, but HJ has also said that he sees very few of certain marques suffering DPF problems, and has included BMW in that list. With a substantial 'older' section of the population buying Kia cars (though I'm not including Skidpan in that list, as I've no idea), and probably doing less mileage than younger/non-retired drivers, it would certainly seem to me that Kia come into that 'well-designed' group too.

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Tue 26 Aug 2014 17:33
2012 VW T5 California - The Curse of a Diesal Particulate Filter - Railroad.
Measwade. As an alternative to taking your car to a garage, search the VAG forums for anyone living near to you with VCDS. It has the functionality for DPF regeneration. I have it and I'm in Hampshire if that's any good to you.
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Sat 13 Sep 2014 13:18
2012 VW T5 California - The Curse of a Diesal Particulate Filter - measwade
Measwade. As an alternative to taking your car to a garage, search the VAG forums for anyone living near to you with VCDS. It has the functionality for DPF regeneration. I have it and I'm in Hampshire if that's any good to you.

Thanks for this information unfortunately I live in France. I have just got the vehicle back from a clean and within days the light has come on again. So I am now all over VW Germany, as the main dealer in Angoulême would appear to taking the p***.

Do you know if these filters can damage if they are cleaned badly?

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Sun 14 Sep 2014 21:17
2012 VW T5 California - The Curse of a Diesal Particulate Filter - mark999
Dealers seem to be very poor at diagnosing DPF problems. The VAG DPF problems are usually due to a faulty pressure sensor.
Also as far as I understand forced regents aren't particularly good for the DPF.
I suggest searching the VAG forums for a recommended VAG specialist.
Mark
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