My son collected his new Golf Bluemotion on Friday.
Drove it from Milton Keynes to Staffs Friday (motorway), Staffs to Slough Sunday (motorway), used it for work (3 miles each way) Monday onwards and on the way in to Work Thursday the DPF warning light came on.
Should they be this sensitive to short runs? And what is the point of a car built to be economical if you have to give it a blast at 2500 revs for 15 minutes every 3 days!
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For it to occur after such a short time on a new car definately suggests a fault, I've never seen the DPF light on my A3. They are sensitive to short runs, but not over the course of 2 days.
Good luck with the dealer.
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In 6 months Ive had my Golf Plus with DPF, I have never had the DPF warning light come. I do 45 Km a day on a normal busy road with lots of stops and starts, average speed 60 KMPH, going to work and 40 KM a day on the autostrada (I live in Italy) going home, average speed 150 KMPH.
The DPF filters do block up on constant short runs at low revs/speeds but usualy afer a few weeks not a couple of days. Try driving on a motorway at around 130 KMPH for 20 - 30 KM to see if the light goes off before taking it to the dealer as they are just going to tell you to drive at high revs to clear the filter.
If after your motorway drive, the DPF light is still on then you definatly have a problem which the dealer / VW need to sort out. Either way, you should inform VW HQ in Wolfsburg about your problem, via email. I have found that this is the only way to get VW to sort out problems, Wolsburg contacts the local importer, the local importer contacts the dealer and problems are sorted out. If you go direct to the dealer or VW UK they will just make a bunch of excuses.
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My belief it that it would take a few weeks to block but it took 3 days and all of 15 miles after 200 or so on the motorway.
Have suggested to my son that he visits a dealer.
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It's distictly possible that it hasn't appreciated all the stop-start of the delivery process.
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The delivery process build up should have been cleqared by the drive from Milton Keynes to Staffordshire and then to Slough - the way he drives it would have been at 70-75mph
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You shouldn't ever see that light even if he is babying the throttle.
There must be a fault in the DPF system. I'm not familiar with bluemotion golfs or DPF's on VAG. Maybe it has a 5th injector not functioning correctly or the EGR valve is sticking or perhaps the sensor is just faulty.
Whats the economy like. He should be within 5-10% of the claimed economy if he's running it in.
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The brochure mentions specifically "please note driving conditions within inner cities and the Channel Islands may not provide optimum conditions for the use of DPF technology. Therefore it is advised that you consider this before ordering your vehicle with DPF"
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In so few miles it must be a fault. No way would it have the warning on so soon. I do lots of town driving (maybe hundreds of miles before a blast). Never seen the DPF light on yet.
On the other hand I've had a brand new Passat needing a new turbo on delivery and a VW Golf (6 months earlier) needing a new gearbox on delivery. VW's can arrive with faults. Both of these car had faults when I left the dealer.
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Sounds like a fault that needs clearing.
Does anyone know if the VAG cars with DPF perform an auto-regeneration cycle?
My new Mondeo does this approx. every 500 miles, even if it's just had a good hard run which would clear the DPF a treat. Presumably this is a fail-safe programme in the ECU.
Certainly Ford and its dealers are taking no chances -- a number of Mondeos etc are showing "oil service" lights well before the 12K service interval, which is apparently being caused by an over-sensitive sensor around the DPF.
When mine did this at 4K miles, the dealer's Ford-recommended actions were changing the oil & filter and a recalibration of the sensor, under warranty.
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They are supposed to auto - regenerate every 500 KM.
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The delivery process build up should have been cleqared by the drive from Milton Keynes to Staffordshire and then to Slough -
The term 'regeneration' suggests the filling up up the DPF is a cumulative process - perhaps it would be quite possible for it to need regenerating 15 miles after a hard run.
Not that I am justifying it - I wouldn't have a DPF unless compelled.
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Got my new 170HP DPF, drove 700 miles of motorway, a couple of short journeys and then the light came on, tried to clear it and then the engine management system shut down to limp mode, all in a 10 day old car. The car is UK reg'd but will live in France most of the time and VW Euro breakdown were pretty unhelpful to say the least.
My car is on a 12 month lease and the leasing company have told me that a number of the same Golfs that they have supplied have also broken down within the week. They are not supplying any further cars until this problem is resolved.
Maybe a teething problem but less than impressed.
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This is one of the reasons that I wanted a diesel without a DPF. I normally buy cars nearly new, but one thing that will put me right off a nearly-new diesel is the fact that the previous owner had just got rid because of DPF problems.
As an aside, these blue-motion and eco-motive VAG cars are going to fly off the shelves because of the £35 road tax. But how many people are going to buy these for pottering to and from the shops and taking the kids to football without realising that the DPF will get bunged up pretty quickly. It'll be even worse if they've bought their car online, because they won't have had anyone to warn them how their driving style could affect the DPF.
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Having read the small print in the Roomie's manual I have learnt it doesn't have one. Oh Joy.
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Nor does my Golf. One distinct advantage of the 140 bhp engine over the 170 is that this wretched device is optional.
I'm not against a DPF in principle but why on earth don't they test them properly before putting them on sale? It really is stupid of VAG - ultimately they will lose sales.
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A couple of weeks back I was searching on some Golf forums and there seems to have been a spate of DPF-related symptoms, with engines going into limp mode after a couple of days.
The majority of these seem to have been solved by replacing a specific sensor around the DPF (a sensor which measures exhaust gas pressure across the DPF if I remember right), but in all the of the reported cases it was the same sensor at fault.
I wonder if VAG is having one of its periodic supplier problems, like it did with MAFs and coil packs in the last few years.
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Mine is still stuck in France at a dealer in Ferney Voltaire, so I am taxi bound. Interestingly with the breakdown pack that came with the car it was covered for pan european breakdown. No small print!
Having broken down in France and telling RAC France that I may be here for an extended period they informed me that the cover was only for a max of 90 days at a time. VW UK say this is wrong, but RAC France have sent me details that are not included with the car at point of sale.
In short they will not cover me for European breakdowns on this vehicle which is now logged on the system, this repair was done as a goodwill gesture after I kicked up a real fuss.
In addition I have been informed that under warranty they will not cover this fault in the future and drivers must adapt their driving style, as it only did 20 miles of short journey follwed by 60 miles of "burning off" as per the manual, not sure what impact my driving style can have.
So not only have they released a car with a problem, they supply literature with their cars that is wrong and then aren't even aware of what is actually covered on their cars. All good.
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As an aside these blue-motion and eco-motive VAG cars are going to fly off the shelves because of the £35 road tax. But how many people are going to buy these for pottering to and from the shops and taking the kids to football without realising that the DPF will get bunged up pretty quickly. It'll be even worse if they've bought their car online because they won't have had anyone to warn them how their driving style could affect the DPF.
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The price difference between £35 road tax and the next band equates to about a tank and a half of diesel? Cost-wise, there's no real incentive for buying a Bluemotion, Econetic or whatever low consumption version of a mainstream car.
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Cost-wise there's no real incentive for buying a Bluemotion Econetic or whatever low consumption version of a mainstream car.
Unless you're one of the millions of company car drivers (who pay BIK tax very much linked to the emissions of the vehicle). It is predominantly these drivers that these models are aimed at, not private buyers.
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company car drivers . It is predominantly these drivers that these models are aimed at not private buyers.
Bit of a comedown from the RS4s they had last year though. Stand by for jostling masses of Bluemotions getting in the way at 87 indicated on the motorway as they jockey for position with their fellows...
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Maybe its just me but the situation reads like these cars are not fit for purpose. In this day and age, you should be able to drive a car as fast or slow as you wish in term of how the car copes. Its funny if you dont own one, but sympathy to those who do, seems like it may become an on-going problem.
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Autocar long-term test of a Skoda Octavia vRS 2.0 TDI reported 9 DPF blockages over 24,500 miles, and 2 of those required dealer attention. Can't image that mileage in a year was accumulated pottering around town.
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I read in a recent review of the Golf Mark 6 that all diesel models will come with DPF as standard - let's hope they get the problem sorted before launch
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200 miles on and less than 3 weeks old mine has broken down again, last time it was sensor failure.
Standard response is "my driving style", the car has done 3 short jouneys of 4 miles each and 160 miles of fast cross country and highway driving. Standard method to clear the filter has not worked again despite another 35 minutes of aimless driving.
What a total piece of sh-t. VW have to be the most uninterested company I have ever dealt with and no more VW's for me, I am going to hand this car back to the leasing company after just 3 weeks and 900 miles, trouble is I have to undertake a 1,500 mile round trip to achieve this from Geneva to UK.
Be warned about this car.
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talking of VW probs, son has Jan 08 Golf GTi dsg, steering "creaking" at 8,000 miles, needs new rack - "fairly common failure", says dealer. Being done, under warranty, of course, but (from what one reads here these days) another example of VAG's falling quality standards.
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I seem to remember some car mag ran a GTI that needed a new rack pretty soon aswell.
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Why do people still think VWs are reliable? I've had my share of problems on some. As did my brother with a Golf MkIII and the other brother with a Sharan.
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Vw Tiguan 2.0 Diesel
This car has been to the dealer 3 times running like a tramp no fault found the mecanic just drove it down the road bad fuel cons and rough!! weekend 3 warning lights back to garage they then found a faulty exhaust sensor which had put the engine management system into freefall including DPF result after 3 months fretting the car goes like a bomb .What happened to common sense??? I f the garage had done an emission test they would have found the problem 3 months ago . VERY POOR VW
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