I bought my 67 plate Scout last August and it's now got 34,000 miles on. Yesterday, the amber DPF warning light came on and then went off again after less than a mile. This is the first time this has happened in almost a year. As I was very near the Skoda main dealer, I popped in there and spoke to a mechanic. He said not to worry about it as these cars are good at looking after themselves. I have done quite a few short (under 10 miles) journeys recently, but a couple of times a month we do over 100 miles. Do I need to worry about this? My car is due a service in less than a month and will be serviced at the main dealer.

I would suggest not to worry, they are pretty good at looking after themselves.

 

Years back people might have suggested to drive the car  in 3 rd at constant revs to get the DPF hot enough to "regenerate it" but really the system will monitor it better than doing that and intervene when required. the first light is a warning  

 

When the car does an "Active" regeneration,  it'll get the DFP to around 500C or more to burn off the soot accumulated. 

 

As the light has gone out again its happy for now.  If you feel an active generation (revs increase to 1000rpm when idling, fans on and stinking of burning) all I would suggest would be to ensure it finishes fully by not turning off the engine and interrupting it.

 

I get an "Active" generation routinely once per tank full or more depending on driving and do around 600 miles a month of mixed A roads and B roads, I just let it do its thing and don't worry about it. 

 

Service at the dealers should check for diagnostic fault codes stored, you could tell them warning light came on and you'd like to know if any faults have been registered in the DTC log. 

 

 

Short journeys and the 2.0 TDI don't mix. Take it on a long fast journey, put in a tank of super diesel and let the car clear itself out. 

On 25/07/2021 at 12:27, varaderoguy said:

Short journeys and the 2.0 TDI don't mix. Take it on a long fast journey, put in a tank of super diesel and let the car clear itself out. 

We went 30 miles down the motorway and back and will be doing a few longer (20 miles+) journeys this week. I was just baffled why the amber light went off again in less than a mile. Sill, the mechanics a Skoda seem happy that it'll not be a problem so long as I put in a few longer trips.

The car probably hit a soot threshold which cause the warning light to show, basically asking you for help to regen.

 

During that mile, It may have gotten the DPF hot enough to start burning off the soot and once it dropped below the threshold, the light extinguished

 

It's just a theory as unless the car now has a fault code stored, it's impossible to tell.

18 minutes ago, langers2k said:

The car probably hit a soot threshold which cause the warning light to show, basically asking you for help to regen.

 

During that mile, It may have gotten the DPF hot enough to start burning off the soot and once it dropped below the threshold, the light extinguished

 

It's just a theory as unless the car now has a fault code stored, it's impossible to tell.

It's getting a service at the main dealer in a couple of weeks, so if there's a problem, it'll be found out. It's still under warranty.

They are not likely to find a fault when the car is doing as a car with a TDI / DPF is doing what it is doing by the use it gets.

 

The isuue is that it can get more common that you get a light then start getting 'Blocked DSF' lights, but again that can be pretty normal.

@Border Collie did you "feel" the car doing a regen before the light went out?

 

To me an active regen is pretty noticeable when in stop start traffic, perhaps less so if you've not had to stop for a while. It chucks in more fuel to get the DPF hot enough and the engine "can" feel a bit more "sluggish"/heavy" but perceptions are different between people and the different engine Size/bhp of tdi's in our cars. 

 

The only indication I have of my car doing an active regen is the car not cutting out at the lights.

 

Can't honestly say I've noticed performance being affected. 

4 hours ago, paulski said:

@Border Collie did you "feel" the car doing a regen before the light went out?

 

To me an active regen is pretty noticeable when in stop start traffic, perhaps less so if you've not had to stop for a while. It chucks in more fuel to get the DPF hot enough and the engine "can" feel a bit more "sluggish"/heavy" but perceptions are different between people and the different engine Size/bhp of tdi's in our cars. 

 

Never noticed any change, but this is my first DPF vehicle after 12 years of PD. iI have noticed occasionally, the fan running full blast after we've parked up at home, but I've also had petrol cars that did that in the past, so thought nothing of it.  I've just had the car since last Aug and with "lockdowns", only covered 3,000 miles, it'll take some getting used to I guess.

On 25/07/2021 at 12:27, varaderoguy said:

Short journeys and the 2.0 TDI don't mix. Take it on a long fast journey, put in a tank of super diesel and let the car clear itself out. 

Long time after your original post but I agree early DPF equipped cars and especially ones like my Focus that used Eolys fluid to help regenerate the DPF were indeed problematic. 

 

However my parents have a 17 reg superb that does at best a few thousand miles a year on average all short journeys and have never had any dpf issues. I think once or twice the dpf light has come on and they have had to go for a drive to clear it. 

 

I have also had my Octavia VRS diesel 18 reg now for just over a year. My journey to work is 8.5 miles each way (A and B roads) and not once have I had the dpf light on in that year of owning it. My car rarely goes on a the motorway and when it does it never does a regen that I notice. I do understand about passive active and forced regens as I have delved into the DPF world since owning my focus then MG6 diesel and now this one. 

 

I think with newer cars they are less of a problem than they used to be and a lot of problems are usually down to another system like the egr or glow plugs or something else stopping the regen taking place. To do a regen the egr valve, glow plugs, timing and fuel injection are all changed/used to aid the exhaust to get up to temp to burn the soot off. 

 

Even newer petrol cars now have god's fitted to them and have to the same regeneration. A fact a lot of people seem to not now about or even think that a petrol now has a gpf. 

 

Of course I could well be proved wrong in everything I say but like I said I have done a fair amount of research into dpf's since my first car with a dpf. 

 

My focus was totally obvious when doing a regen, including white/grey smoke out the exhaust possibly because of the EOLYS fluid it used, but I have I think once so far notice what I would call a dpf regen with my Skoda, when I actually noticed visible smoke from the exhaust. As for the other things like a harsher engine note or hesitation I noticed that with my focus but never with my Octavia. 

 

Oh and my parents Superb has done less miles than my car. 17 reg 48k at last not on Feb, mine around 60k currently offhand. 

 

The other reason I think some people experience more problems is due to mileage. A dpf usually needs replacing around 100k to 120k miles due to the ash content left behind that cannot be burnt off. 

 

Just my thoughts anyway, not picking on your post but quoted it for context. 

 

 

Thanks for your response.

 

I'm still sticking with my original posting. TDI 2.0 engines and short journeys do not mix. My point comes from during lockdown, we had a lot of peeps reporting issues with poor performance (very low mpg), battery issues and issues with dpf light (ie high calculated ash build-up). The MIL light will also be triggered if pressure levels are too high pre-dpf due to blocked dpf.

 

I agree that modern diesels are waayyy better than diesels from even 10 years ago, but most peeps buy a diesel for high mpg, low running costs. Of course the car will do it's best to keep the dpf clear but it will be at the expense of the cars longer term performance if a long occasion journey is not performed.

 

Of course there are numerous points of view on here and elsewhere, but I express my experience based on driving and owned/owning numerous different permutations of the MK3 Octavia. My local dealer also says that my cars are also mechanically in excellent state of repair when I bring my cars to them (and hence my servicing costs are super-low).

 

 

@simcor

The petrols do have GPF,s now and Regens are done differently from a diesel with a DPF.

Most like your parents will have no issues with DPF or GPF, but then that is not really much of anything for those that do.

As Skoda get to 6 years of GPF,s being fitted time will tell when anyone might need a replacement GPF. 

 

A big difference with TDI,s is SCR (Adblue) and that does not mean that DPF,s can not clog, and many do with shorter, cold start journeys and quite new vehicles did from that being introduced, and it is just another complexity, and it can be quite an expense when things go wrong.

So knowing the topping up procedure is just a case of being 'Simply Clever'. 

 

DPF, GPF info for those that need to know.  Covid Lock down did have some asking why their TSI was revving high and not just Ant-stall high. 

 

Edited 6 March, 20242 yr by Rooted

Just came back the this thread, adblue is nothing to do with a DPF, adblue is injected into the exhaust to turn the nitrous oxide into harmless (allegedly) nitrogen and water. 

 

So the 2 are fairly unrelated other than lowering emissions, both are just ways of making diesel's cleaner. 

 

Having adblue brings it's own issues like making sure the adblue is topped up, costs to add the adblue to that tank and also dosing injector issues if you use cheap adblue or it crystallizes. I would urge owners with the adblue system to use only decent quality adblue. Thankfully my VRS doesn't use adblue so I don't have to worry about it.