DPF problems and driving habits

I know theres alot of posts on here about DPF issues. There also seems to be many which connect the issues with short trip driving with no highway use to allow the system to burn off.

I am looking at purchasing an 07 STX auto and wondering what types of driving those who experience these problems are doing, compared to owners who have not had any issues.

eg: 10 km @ max 60km/h trips only, with highway use maybe once a month
VS
80km @ 100km/h everyday.

Just trying to work out if i'm likely to experience the issues experienced by others by comparing my driving needs.

Jazz

I had a DPF issue when the car was 2 months old and had 3000km on the clock. It happened in the north of WA when i was driving at 115kph. Was not happy. The car went into limp mode and it cost me $320 + 6 days to have it fixed. Haven't had a problem since and i've just had the 40K service done.

The DPF's are bastard things and as soon as the warranty is up it'll be coming out. The replacement pipes cost about $300 + freight (see ebay or chip-it).

For the amount of auto navarra's out there compared to the issues some face, they aren't an issue. So, i wouldn't worry about it. Just rip the thing out and replace if it's going to be an issue.


Good luck.

My '09 auto hasn't had a single problem with the DPF.

Monday to Friday it is a city runabout, driven for 5km here, 10km there, at most 20km in a single trip.

Weekends it's a tourer, sometimes lightly loaded, other times hauling our van. Forest trails are a favourite, so we're hauling 2.5T Navara plus 1.8T van up steep, winding narrow dirt trails, then doing highway for sometimes considerable distances.

This Christmas we did a 7,079km trip hauling the caravan from Newcastle through Broken Hill and Port Augusta to Uluru, returning via Port Augusta, Mildura, Deniliquin, Holbrook, Jindabyne, Canberra and Sydney. We had two occasions where the engine heated up more than I was happy with, but there were no problems with the DPF at all. We used 1275.42 litres of diesel (I forgot to account for the jerry cans we'd used, when I remember I'll go back to my other thread and adjust the figures).

If you have a fear about the DPF, don't. The thing does cause the vehicle to use more fuel, and for about $500 you can see ChipIt and get a DPF Delete Pipe. Whack that in and be done with the problem and the extra consumption.

My '09 hasn't had any DPF issues either.

Apart from the trip I did to Perth this time last year my ute spends most of it's time on country roads doing trips of between 7ks (stop, start one side of town to the other) and 40 ks (to the farm and back at around 80kph). I occasionally do trips of about 300ks a day and they will be done at max of 97ks but through those speeds and trips I never gun it, don't believe in the theory that diesels need to be hammered periodically to blow cobwebs out and generally drive sedately under all conditions.

Until such time as mine causes me any trouble I won't be thinking about it much and even if it does cause problems I can't say for sure I'll just get rid of it.

I have a manual diesel Xtrail under a novated lease (Which replaced my D22) and had a Holden Captiva provided by work before that. In the Captiva I saw the DPF light a couple of times, none of which made any sense as they were both very soon after start up after a long run at highway speeds which would have been prime DPF regen conditions.

the Xtrail I have never seen the light come up. I did some research on the Oz Xtrail forums and some people had DPF issues with a thread running to about 14 pages last time I looked, but when you look closely it was only two or three people who actually had problems. You can tell when the Xtrail is doing a DPF burn as the instant fuel consumption jumps up by half a litre per 100 or so and if you stop you can smell it due to the heat. Anecdotally I think the Captiva regenned the filter several times a day when I was doing about 150km a day, I have not picked it in the Xtrail as it is a lot more unobtrusive about it, the Captiva sounded different when it did it. I have often wondered how often is normal. the only difference I can think of between the two is theperformance of the Captiva meant that they tend to get thrashed where the Xtrail is more relaxed and cruisy with heaps of mid range torque to encourage moderate throttle and low revs. That would presumably reduce smoke and stretch the time out between regens.

Basically even in the Captive I doubt I would have bothered trying to delete it. I just wish that (Seeing they do not seem to fit one to the Xtrail for all markets) if it passes without one here they would have deleted it in Australia and saved the fuel. At least if I decided to try deleting it it is really easy to access in the Xtrail.

My DPF light has come on twice......work like it supposed to work....kick the rpm up to 1600 (ie 80kph in drive) and voila....the regen is done in about 10 minutes. Remember that while the book says 80kph all you really need to do is ensure you keep the revs at or above 1600 while the regen takes place.