[old grey steve]

We are seeing a fair few customers through our doors with poor performance issues often related to as it turns out DPF and exhaust back pressure related issues, we've all heard of the various issues relating to turbo failure and blocked DPF's the solutions are well publicised but that's is by far the worse one I've seen.





and this is the scariest one of all



Blocked DPF's are a nightmare the resulting turbo damage shows what can happen the car in question had done 90 odd thousand and here's the thing had been regularly serviced this as I've said is about the 5th one we've seen in about 8 days this car was a35d so twin turbo set up the unit your looking at is the primary turbo the destruction is eye watering when we had the turbo in situ we started it up and were greeted with a sparks display show within a couple of seconds and once removed the impeller blade you see literally fell out and in case your wondering about the second turbo it was ok but still relaced as a matter of course

Scary

[jimborae]

Jesus, glad I went petrol rather than diesel! That's horrendous.

[Ajs_435d]

To add to this as some folk know I've owned my 335d for 5 month now, I had my dpf removed along with a stage 2 tune. I bought the car with 90k on and the Dpf was clean as a whistle of course depends on how car is treat I really think you have to open them up every so often.

[marknjayne]

had mine removed due to being blocked,dpf's are no good for local driving

[G82Dude]

Originally Posted by marknjayne

had mine removed due to being blocked,dpf's are no good for local driving

What about the DPF on the newer cars? DPF for lifetime of vehicle so they say...?

[IanS100]

Originally Posted by uke92dude

What about the DPF on the newer cars? DPF for lifetime of vehicle so they say...?

That's right, scrap the car when the dpf gets blocked

[old grey steve]

It's damn scary I ditched my old 330d(even though it didn't have a DPF as it was a 2003 E46 model) due to it then being my only car(gave up selling cats so demo went back)doing local mileage(under 20 per day) and I know that this isn't at all good news for diesels. Injectors, pumps you name it diesels hate short journeys and DPF's are the biggest single issue we are now seeing.

The above car was by far the worst turbo I've seen of late coupled with the blocked DPF it was only time before it proper let go. The oil had been dumped through the inlet ova the intercooler(oil poured out if this) the pipes as you'd expect we're dripping and of course in the exhaust system there was a little bit of oil deposited here as well but as you can see from the DPF no visual oil signs present in the picture.

Digressing slightly when selling cars I was aware of thus issue and when qualifying customers re what they wanted most were after low running costs(low tax, insurance, good fuel economy)and this automatically when looking at figures steered most people in the direction of a diesel car of some kind, when I was polite enough to mention that for some the choice wasn't the wisest it was often shrugged off as everyone was set on low tax and fuel economy, even though the fact that most cost at least £1000 more than their petrol compatriots was right there in front of there eyes I ask where the money saving idea now, but the draw as always was cheaper tax and fewer petrol station stops!

Plus of course they cost a little more to service and when in difficulty on average far more to repair. All you can do is explain.

[rsmallwo]

Hi,

I've dpf issues for the past 9months on my 335d. So far I've had the dpf replaced, small turbo, several pressure sensors, both thermostats. My issue is that I keep getting too often regens, every 100/130mls or so. I used to get 300mls between them. All my issues started when my swirl flaps where removed. Was only getting 40/60mls between regens. Got these put back on (after trying a new dpf and small turbo) and got to where i am now. My mechanic is pointing at my remap. He sees the exhaust back pressure go above 250 at full throttle. He's thinking that going over this threshold sets off an early regen cycle. Recently i'ved had my dpf block up and need a forced regen after taking my car out for a serious booting it session. So clearly I still have a fundimental problem. Going to see what my tuners can do but can u offer any other advice, bar dpf removal......

Thanks,

[Leah1]

How do you know your having regens that often? ? Serious question
And how could the dpf keep blocking if it's regen'ing that often mine regens a every 200miles or so I do a lot of town driving

[rsmallwo]

Can feel a regen by autobox holding onto gears and mpg goes down 25%. Theres fault code stating "regen too often"

[335DEE]

All related to weak thermostats , these units should be changed every 40k miles without fail regardless of what BS bmw come out with , I changed mine 20k miles ago and it's already showing signs of going weak again.. I'm not too concerned this time round as i've taken steps to prevent blockages and expensive repairs

Some geezer had a ebay bargain .. said person won a 335d small turbo with 10k miles on it .. £32 !! oooshh
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-335d-s...item27e1e1fd23

[thaking]

You need to use Aditives like Fortron for DPF...

[Leah1]

You can't really tell by doing it that way mate, only way would be to get your own copy of dis or what I use scan gauge 2 to monitor the exhaust gas temperatures that's how I'm sure I'm getting a regen every 200mile at town driving or double that on motorway

[old grey steve]

There's a shit load of reasons why DPF's end up this way I think the really astounding thing re this car was the state of the turbo you wouldn't of bet a tenner on seek f that amount of destruction would you.

But the annoying thing is more and more DPF's are failing more and more customers picking up a high mileage diesel thinking it'll be cheap economical motoring are going to be greeted by DPF issues meaning it wasn't fir them the smartest investment re wanting economic motoring when you read the front if the manual I'm certain somewhere in there it states serviceable DPF life is around 100.000 miles or words to that effect and as some DPF's are £1600+VAT to supply it does make you wonder plus as it's back pressure look what it's doing to the turbo unit and all for the sake of the environment (and the crazy rules)

We see a good few different reasons why customers report issues on the Autos they cause more problems as everything control unit wise is working together and when one detects an issue them various things take place, we can measure exact values on our AutoLogic system from back pressure to temperature and can see if a forced Re Gen will help with a TunAp fuel additive or whether a forced Re Gen can create more harm as Re Gens can also create problems as well and on several occasions we have been advised by AutoLogic when presenting figures we feel are too out of our comfort to abort any Re Gen attempts to preserve things as they are in other words it's critical.

We've done a few DPF deletes it's a grey area but along with a decent re map to suit you banish the problem once and for all smoke wise well on the maps we've done there's no issue the DPF filters stitched up in such a way that back in the car when we do it you can't see the join(so Mr MOT will know no different)you get less back pressure you prolong turbo life and what's more you can rap for more power with economy or go for a more power only option, which oddly enough gives better economy than the standard car too

All very strange eh

[BIFCAIDS]

Im looking at a re-map (superchips for the Bluefin) for my 325d its currently on 53.5k gets a good kicking every now and then am I likely to be running into these sort of problems and is it worth me looking into a DPF delete?

I think my problem is some times it all seems a little bit like scaremongering.

[marknjayne]

Originally Posted by BIFCAIDS

Im looking at a re-map (superchips for the Bluefin) for my 325d its currently on 53.5k gets a good kicking every now and then am I likely to be running into these sort of problems and is it worth me looking into a DPF delete?

I think my problem is some times it all seems a little bit like scaremongering.

i would recommend having it removed,its far from scaremongering,it happened to me at 62k and a lot of people i know have suffered blocked dpf's

[Leah1]

Seriously wouldn't remove it until you get problems or you want the extra 20bhp or so there's no one that does more short journeys than me but I monitor egt and when I see they rise just take it for more of a spin to allow it time to regen

[335d Rocco]

Originally Posted by BIFCAIDS

Im looking at a re-map (superchips for the Bluefin) for my 325d its currently on 53.5k gets a good kicking every now and then am I likely to be running into these sort of problems and is it worth me looking into a DPF delete?

I think my problem is some times it all seems a little bit like scaremongering.

I'd recommend keeping the DPF in place if it not giving you any trouble at the mo. The way MOT rules are changing regarding dpf's, getting rid of it is the last thing I'd be doing if it wasn't giving you any trouble. When I had my diesel I considered getting rid of the DPF but was concerned about possible implications further down the line, so that was one of the reasons I went back to petrol.

[old grey steve]

Getting shot of the DPF's a tough call, sure MOT rules have moved on but as they test for smoke, not Co2 then with a decent sympathetic remap to suit(we've done a few plus checked on the MOT gas analyser for smoke)everything falls in to place, by removing the DPF and re welding the outer case back together so that visibly there's little/no sign of alteration there's nothing really that should effect the MOT.

When you add up the cost say of a 530d which we done before the Easter break(oddly enough the it was in at the same time the other car was with us) the DPF was costed at £1685 from memory + VAT, add to that £40+ VAT for new clamps/brackets and new gaskets and then the labour which is around £220+VAT you can see that it isn't cheap but at least you've got your DPF back.

On the other hand you get the same labour plus £85 + VAT for innards being removed and correctly welded up plus say £245+VAT for a re map that can be tailored to suit DPF removal, EGR removal if you please plus you get more power, more economy and less back pressure for the turbo looking ahead and suddenly it doesn't look to bad. And you spend about half what you'd do spent on the DPF replacement ensuring the cars able to drive in town as well as on the motorway without any future nasties.

You could do a halfway house and obtain a replacement DPF from a breakers but they are going for strong money are rare and do you know how healthy the replacement item us going to be. You could of course get your DPF professionally vacuumed some company's offer this solution I know it does work but I also know if yours has gone too far it's not always as effective as it should be. Hence the removal looks all the more attractive.

DPF's can go from surprisingly low mileages one thing we know is that we are going to see more and more of these as time goes by.

Slightly digressing here as I'll jump to CATS, but don't be tempted if ones available to buy an aftermarket option (unless the softer market option is a very reputable company and I actually can't think of any)as these although advertised as direct replacement parts will as far as I'm concerned cause issues re back pressure plus from our perspective we've seen enough aftermarket CATS on cars with various issues including burning valves on some cars due to back pressure flow to be 100% against their fitment, we've seen CATS from Euro's GSF go on you can see they are physically smaller they are lighter in weight when you look inside 9 times out of 10 you see the internal diameters are narrower as well you question their fitment, but a lot of people chose this option to save money/to get the car on the road to sell on.

Personally if done right the DPF removal us a very sensible thing to do, but only do it is say if there's a DPF issue, but then again it will help the turbo.