Holly Molly. Went to the supermarket this afternoon. Car was acting up. Really rough idle, very jerky gear changes, car felt it was unhappy. Got to the supermarket and started sniffing as I got the strongest of burning smells. I lifted the bonnet and the smell was coming from the back of the engine.

I then put two and two together and realised that the rough running and the burning smell was the TSI equivalent of a major regen and as I have a Euro6a car, it has a GPF in it.

Car was doing a regen, but had finished by the time I got to our destination. Never smelt it go like this before but it might also have been the Lanolin under body spray I put under the car to protect it reacting with the heat in the GPF.

Its not as obvious as a TDI with the fans running at high speeds, it just doesn't auto stop start. This posting is just in case anybody else experiences this issue.

Edited 12 July, 202512 Jul by varaderoguy

My understanding is that a TSI GPF regen is very different from the TDI DPF procedure - and is only carried out during engine overrun conditions.

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Well, I can confirm that my Octavia definitely didn't display the Indicator light; but it was absolutely doing a regen.

6 hours ago, varaderoguy said:

Well, I can confirm that my Octavia definitely didn't display the Indicator light; but it was absolutely doing a regen.

Unless someone swapped your TSI for a TDI engine during your last service, I seriously doubt that it was.

The smell was almost certainly due to the lanolin sprayed onto the exhaust.