DPF Power wash

[Excision]

Opinions welcome:

I am minded to take the DPF off my car and give it a blast through with my pressure washer to clean it out. Has any one tried this and had positive results? Or is the idea madness? My car stinks of fumes really bad when idling (and begins smoking after a couple of minutes) that I am willing to try some unconventional ideas.

[I think the root cause could be failing oil seals in the turbo, letting oil past into the exhaust, or something else.... dodgy EGR, tandem pump dying, depleted flux capacitor. Oh, I don't know! Blooming' car.]

 

Cheers 

[Papfox]

We have a number of larger diesel vehicles at work and these have active filter monitoring that tell us when the DPFs are getting bad.

 

The first course of action is to go for a 2 hour drive on the motorway as this often lets them regenerate on their own. If it's really bad, we add some DPF cleaner additive to the fuel. This raises the combustion temperature and lets the DPF reach a high enough temperature to vaporise all the junk out of it. This generally works. Every so often we have to take the filters off and take them to a professional company to get cleaned. This is a specialist process involving high temperatures, lots of pressure and chemicals.

 

I don't think a pressure washer is likely to help.

 

Good luck

[willy0329]

9 hours ago, Excision said:

Opinions welcome:

I am minded to take the DPF off my car and give it a blast through with my pressure washer to clean it out. Has any one tried this and had positive results? Or is the idea madness? My car stinks of fumes really bad when idling (and begins smoking after a couple of minutes) that I am willing to try some unconventional ideas.

[I think the root cause could be failing oil seals in the turbo, letting oil past into the exhaust, or something else.... dodgy EGR, tandem pump dying, depleted flux capacitor. Oh, I don't know! Blooming' car.]

 

Cheers 

Just a thought is your turbo oil feed hose leaking and seeping onto the engine and giving off a smell ? its a common fault on older cars .when i serviced my car last week i had a small bit of oil on the undertray from the back of the engine and it looks like its coming from the turbo feed , i have a smell when my car is warm and parked up running .

[Guest]

I think I read somewhere ages ago that some folks tried a garden hose to good effect, care was needed not to damage the internals.

 

I suppose you could bung it on a bonfire and roast the guts out of it like some types did with two stroke exhaust pipes.

 

Not recommending either method, just saying.

 

YouTube will no doubt have a backyard solution.

[silver1011]

If the turbo seals are leaking then the oil will be sitting in the DPF and slowly killing it.

 

Power washing DPF's offers a short term fix, the washing process weakens the coating inside reducing its effectiveness. Great if selling the car, not if you want a long term fix.

 

Gut it and have it properly mapped out or replace it, these are the only long term solutions.

[Vegasphil]

Surely power washing a DPF isn't a good idea. I'm all for "at home" fixes and saving on garage fees etc, but it just sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. 

[skodacarman]

Remember that there are two types of stuff that accumulate in the DPF - soot and ash.  Soot burns off in a regeneration.  Ash doesn't burn, and eventually fatally clogs the thing up.

[silver1011]

The ash is a bi-product from burning off the soot.

 

Jet washing the DPF cleans out most of the ash but weakens the DPF so is therefore a short-term fix.

 

Gutting the DPF means no ash is stored but more soot exits the tailpipe. This is a permanent fix and has other benefits including less restriction on the exhaust system, reduced fuel consumption and a smoother drive.

 

There are however potential MOT and insurance complications and of course your conscience from the increased pollution. 

[Excision]

Thank you to all who replied to my post. Wash out plan currently shelved (but not abandoned), as I don't have time right now to get into, err, invasive 'preventative maintenance'.

 

 

[FatblokeVRS]

These guys did our DPF a few months ago. Been fine since.

 

http://www.dpfdeepclean.co.uk

 

[chimaera]

On 06/26/2017 at 20:36, silver1011 said:

The ash is a bi-product from burning off the soot.

No, the ash comes from the small amount of engine oil that gets burned in the engine. The soot burns off completely. This is one of the reasons why using the wrong is a bad idea.

[silver1011]

The term 'soot' is used to describe all particles contained in the DPF. The carbon is burnt off during regeneration, it is the remaining incombustible items such as other hydrocarbons originating in the fuel and engine oil as well as sulfates that can't be burnt off that remain in the DPF as 'ash'.

 

The soot already contains the ash.