Year of Manufacture *: Various Engine Size and Code *: Various
DPF Regeneration attempt following DPF brick removal.
We are seeing more and more vehicles recently which have had their diesel particulate filters removed without their soot fill counters being reset or their ECU's being flashed with a DPF deletion file.
My question is this, have any UKAT members been able to successfully carry out a forced regeneration on any make of vehicle with the DPF's contents removed. I thought regeneration could only be possible with the "brick" being present?
why they had dpf brick removed without remap?-Limp home mode. It is difficult to perform regen without brick - because you will not raise the temp in the exhaustto complete regeneration. One more question-whats the point to reset the counters - only with removing brick- still limp mode due to unexpected dpf pressure-dpf empty. And the last one dpf removed+good remap =no more regenerations =better fuel consumption.
>>>My question is this, have any UKAT members been able to successfully carry out a forced regeneration on any make of vehicle with the DPF's contents removed.<<<<
Why would you want to carry out a forced regen with no brick ? If only to reset the soot counters would it not be better to use >> new DPF fitted << option
As said I cant see any success without a reflash, almost certainly going to have MIL & Limp issues.
I have just been through his very same problem on a 307 hdi, Customer wouldn't allow me to do a forced regen so he asked about dpf brick removal.
I declined and said I don't know the outcome if you do it. Anyway he knew better and proceeded so now the eml is on and dropping into limp mode.
It had other issues such as diesel leaking into turbo vac control solenoid so lost boost, I sorted that but again eml on.
Next he googled and brought me in a voltage regulator to fit, sure enough I could get the ecu to report dpf regenerated and lower dpf pressure to 0mbar but struggled to delete dtc for dpf punctured or incorrect data received.
So you achieve one part but fail on another and just lose time unpaid for.
I sent in your direction [you are crd] a 1600 focus taxi on fri with a very long story.
I normally believe in keeping dpf's on and repairing. This was taken out of my hands on this occasion.
The car came to me on 60,000 miles from a mobile mechanic for a refill of the fluid and reset. About a month later it came back with a dpf soot overload fault. So i did a static regen, which it did successfully. If he were to come back he would have the option of a new dpf or a clean out with tunap which has reported success on this forum.
He came back about a month later saying the mobile mechanic had taken it somewhere and had the dpf removed and could i just reset the dpf[which i did expecting low pressure faults] The light was still on reporting high soot content. So i tried a static regen. Which to my surprise worked.
I put it down to the software[60,000 miles seems to be a common mileage on these focus,s] having to see a regen before it will clear the faults.
A happy taxi driver for 60,000 miles [again to my surprise] The car came back with the same codes of p242f-e1 p2458-21 p2458-61 which are related to regen and and soot overload.
He told me the car had just had its second turbo from ECP which caused me to advise him of a poss oil pressure problem known to these engines.
I checked the pressure in the dpf and they weren't to high. So thinking the dpf wasn't getting hot enough to regen on its own and the software wanting to see a regen to reset the light the owner agreed to a static regen knowing of the poss oil pressure problem.
The oil light came on just as the regen finished. The owner was there watching. Another long story later. I will not do a static regen or try to buy a secondhand engine for one of these.[there aren't any good ones out there] I have now heard of two more of these engines going wrong on a static regen.
Approx 1,000 miles later the car came back on thur with the same dpf codes. I cleared the codes and went on a road test with the owner driving. We went once around the m60 and the dpf regen'ed twice and the temp went to about 600c when regening. The pressure started of cruising at about 12kpa and under load 15kpa and when we finished it was down to 7kpa cruising and 10kpa under load. There were no problems driving. One code returned p2458-61 i think.
The next day he returned back in limp. I wasn't going to do a static regen so i sent him to you at crd.
I told him not to just have the remap done but to also have the dpf opened up and what is in there to keep the light out for 60,000 miles removed.
This is a poss reason for why you see a lot of dpf removed but a remap not preformed. I asked the mobile mechanic where he had the dpf removed. He had to take the dpf of and take it to a workshop in Farnworth who cuts them open and re welds. He hasn't got any software but he claims not to have any problems with them afterwords.
They probably all end up at your place.
I did try to fix a A4 after he had removed the dpf but had to give up and send him of for a remap. Sorry for the very long post.
Regards Ian.
p.s I now believe he doesn't remove all the brick but may be 2 thirds.
We have no problem emulating sensor signals of any type and have been using various methods for many years. Being involved also in electronic automotive equipment design we have access to many types of equipment not normally used in most garages.
My question was posted to see which vehicles out there were simple to fool into regeneration without their DPF's in place. We know that on some vehicles using the correct scantool you don't need to re-set the soot fill counters but simply tell the ECU that a new DPF has been fitted before re-mapping it. The problem however is when you don't have the correct tool or such a function isn't supported by the ECU, or, if it is, it's only available after a regen has been carried out or attempted without success, and not when the brick has just been knocked out.
As for making the ECU see what it needs to see by using emulation, this can prove to be very difficult unless someone else has often spent hours on a particular vehicle and are willing to share the information. There may be for instance up to two DPF pressure readings and up to three exhaust gas temp sensors, all of which are expected by the ECU to generate voltages within certain parameters. These parameters may also require the sensors to generate different voltages over a pre-set time period whilst the DPF back pressure decreases and core temperature increases proportionately to the amount of additional diesel being injected through the engine during the exhaust stroke. Also, i forgot to mention, some regens are only possible when the vehicle is being driven, often above a certain road speed, hopefully this only requires one road speed signal to be emulated and not from all four ABS sensors, otherwise that would require a lot of sensor simulators Mark, all on the go at the same time.
As for trying to regen a DPF with the brick removed, I've never achieved this, due to the core temperature of at least 500 degrees not being reached inside an empty container. I'm not disputing that some garages claim to have successfully regened vehicles with their innards removed, some ECU software versions or scantools may allow this, and this is exactly the reason why i wrote this post. If anyone has successfully managed to perform regens with the DPF or catalyst also removed then this would be welcome information
Finally Ian, thanks for sending us the DPF problem Ford Focus taxi and the useful pre-warning information, i'll let you know the outcome.
The vehicle was returned to the customer yesterday and hopefully we will know in the next few days if the mods to the ECU have worked. I can't say exactly what our remapper has done as he will only supply the files and not discuss any details.
on July 5, 2013, 10:23 pm, in reply to "