Just how far does it take to clear a DPF anyway?

[gldgti]

Yesterday I rented a Merc Sprinter CDI fitted with a dpf. 135,000km on the clock. Had to drive from central coast to wagga wagga and back (In a day!).. thats a round trip of 1070km.

Anyway, when I drove out the driveway of the hire place the thing was not impressing me - no power at all and made a terrible loud vibration type noise like the engine was choking over about 3400rpm. I figured it was a rental so its typical.

Anyway, after doing the 522km to the east side of Wagga I filled her up with some nice diesel from a big servo after having chewed through 55L on the trip down. We drove to the other side of Wagga, loaded her up with about a tonne of cargo, and turned back towards home up the Hume.

After about another 150km (trip distance now up to about 650km) i can swear that its pulling more strongly and humming along more easily, despite the extra load - and, every time the admittedly stupid auto kicked it down a gear, the horrible choking roar was gone.

By the time we were going through Sydney, the Sprinter was clearly performing far better than when I'd picked it up and I had kind of 'fallen' for the big 3.0m tall Van, which sat easily on 110 with a full load and after having almost completed my 1000km round trip, felt comfortable and easy to manage.

Anway, before I returned it this morning I filled it with 49.8L (the van has a digital fuel guage with 10 bars.... at Wagga we were down to 2 bars when I filled, and this morning it was only down to 3). So, despite the fact that the van was loaded up and I had my 'get the heck home' goggles on last night, we had used significantly less fuel on the overall longer return trip.

So, all I wanted to say was this - if your dpf is blocking up, maybe its going to take a longer than 15 minute drive to really free it up

**EDIT** by far the most disconcerting thing about the vehicle - NO TEMP GAUGE - WTF?

[Umai Naa!!]

That's very much a real world scenario right there.

Even doing a forced re-gen that requires driving, can take up to an hour out on the road. Easy enough to carry out. Not so easy to explain to the boss or customer.

[Diesel_vert]

The book says at least 15 minutes (meaning anything from 15 minutes to forever) or until the light turns off, and a constant speed of 60 km/h or higher.

Realistically, one can only satisfy both conditions on highways or motorways, which have a speed limit between 90 km/h to 110 km/h, which means a travelling distance of at least 20 km to clear the DPF (not including the distance to get to the highway or motorway).

Unless one likes random journeys or isn't time poor, it certainly has the potential to be a real inconvenience.

[Greg Roles]

To be honest lads my vote is dirty injectors, decent diesel has cleaners, and a LOT of diesel problems come from running cheap diesel...

[Scarfies]

Another reason to live in Canberra. For most of us cleaning the DPF involves a short 3-5min drive before you're onto to a high speed road -admittedly there's nothing at the other end most of the time!

[gldgti]

To be honest lads my vote is dirty injectors, decent diesel has cleaners, and a LOT of diesel problems come from running cheap diesel...

thats true, but the way this thing sounded when I picked it up at higher revs was crazy - was just like the cabby back when I bought it - it had the petrol cars exhaust system fitted with a standard catalytic converter, and the 1.5 non-turbo diesel had clogged it up to the point where it just lost heaps of power, sounded funny at high revs and got terrible economy. I removed the interior of the cat - problem solved