My hybrid got no clutch 🙂

Modern petrols done use clutches?!

😳
I meant DMF’s.

I’ve just been reading about the DPF’s, it implied that if you get the warning light a simple run out will cure it – does this occur and by following the ‘rules’ does it work?

if you get the dpf symbol you can regenerate it yourself by once warm drive at about 2000rpm for about 10-20 minutes until the symbol goes out if you motorway or dual carriageways it should not happen mine was brought on by the fault exhaust pressure sensor
its in the handbook

Loads of conflicting information about DPF removal. I’ve read replies from DoT stating that DPF removal is not an MOT fail so not sure about the above statements that it is illegal and never heard of any prosecutions or MOT problems. The particulate emissions check in the MOT is simply a visual check of the colour of the exhaust gases.

If I get DPF issues I’d be booking it in with Shark Performance in Mansfield (plenty of other companies will do this too) for them to gut and replace the DPF and remap the car while they are at it. Then no way of knowing the DPF has been gutted so less worries if there are any future MOT changes.

molgrips – Member
My hybrid got no clutch

Neither does my 330i Touring – but these are most definitely the outliers in the population…

Daffy my car has rear windows that pop open and a 3cylinder engine.

I doubt it has that 🙂

does this occur and by following the ‘rules’ does it work?

Yep. The DPF is just a filter. If you get it hot enough all the soot burns off.

Neither does my 330i Touring

Auto?

molgrips – Member

Auto?

Yup.

I meant DMF’s.

The garage i went to was fixing a Petrol Ford Mondeo with a failed Dual Mass Flywheel.

Horatio – I’d consider myself a tad too over knowledged in the area of Ford DMFs and a tad under financed as a result. They appear to very VERY rarely fail on petrols (reason partially being as they are not on all models, and partially as they have a much easier life).

On diesels, well, it happens eventually.

Apparently you avoid the issue on auto Diesel Fords.

Could someone..verify??

DeeW – Member

Loads of conflicting information about DPF removal. I’ve read replies from DoT stating that DPF removal is not an MOT fail so not sure about the above statements that it is illegal and never heard of any prosecutions or MOT problems. The particulate emissions check in the MOT is simply a visual check of the colour of the exhaust gases.

If I get DPF issues I’d be booking it in with Shark Performance in Mansfield (plenty of other companies will do this too) for them to gut and replace the DPF and remap the car while they are at it. Then no way of knowing the DPF has been gutted so less worries if there are any future MOT changes.

You can tell if the DPF has been gutted as the car will not meet emissions regulations in a stricter test (one that’s in line with type approval).
But yes under the current MoT, it seems all DPF deleted cars sail through the smoke test. Its limits are quite slack and not in line with original type approval.
The risk of VOSA road side check (which I’m led to believe will have proper emmissions test) and the need for insurance declaration of a modified car are real though.
Tax evasion prosecution is in theory possible but doubt it actually would happen.

My DPF issues caused me to get rid of the car, mainly because I was fed up with it!

No auto will have a DMF (not including dsg and other such things, I think they run ‘normal’clutches)

The auto won’t give you as good mpg (torque converter isn’t as efficient as a clutch) but you won’t get the big bills associated with a DMF failure

Shark performance are pretty well recognised for DPF removal. I will be taking my Volvo to Automotive Developments for its dpf removal. I think the regulations on when the dpf cannot be removed is from 2008 onwards? It is not required for the MOT anyway. The chances of it being law, will be after the noisy chavs in their Corsas are failed on noise first.Ironically the euro 4 engine I have was less efficient than the euro 3 before it. Looking forward to more mpg and less issues. In time ‘all’ of us with diesels will be stuck with this. All petrol cars with stop start will be getting through starter motors and flywheels on an annual basis.
Our Audi 2.5 Tdi needed a new injection pump. Was the pd engine and the Audi quote for a new and ‘coded’ pump was a slightly big £5500 pump only. 🙄 It still cost a grand to get it fixed and we soon hoofed that out for another car,

thekingisdead – Member

The auto won’t give you as good mpg (torque converter isn’t as efficient as a clutch) but you won’t get the big bills associated with a DMF failure

Depends on the number of ratios available to the converter. Many modern Autos are as, if not more efficient than a manual equivalent.

molgrips – Member

does this occur and by following the ‘rules’ does it work?

Yep. The DPF is just a filter. If you get it hot enough all the soot burns off.

DPF is very simple but it relies on a fair few sensors (temp, pressure, air flow) to monitor the soot load. So a fault with a sensor or ECU could lead to clogging to the point a premature replacement is required. Also they burn the soot to form a much smaller volume of ash which can’t be removed from VAG ones so the whole filter needs replaced eventually. A couple of VAG dealers have told me 120k miles as being the expected DPF life

Daffy – Member

molgrips – Member

Auto?

Yup.

Same here with 2005 Toyota Corolla Auto Petrol 1.6 – no clutch.

But the car needs stiffer coil springs (not the suspension that should remain standard) as there body roll is very obvious … hmmm … more money …

Organic355, are based in South Wales?

I have the Rosstech VCDS (VagCom) system that is commonly used for diagnostics and system / component error resetting.

I can put your car into a DPF static regen (I have done this may times to clear this type of fault), this takes around 20 – 25 minutes and does not require any driving.

What it does is get your car out of limp mode by reducing the Soot % in the DPF enough for you to drive at motorway speeds to really clear the system. I can do a full fault diagnosis that will identify sensor faults as well, these may be rectified by cleaning.

It MAY not work but if you are in the Cardiff to Swansea location I would be happy to help free of charge.

I read no end of threads like this about VAG diesels. Why does anyone buy them? It’s a mystery to me! Seems like most of them need one of these £800-2000 bills eventually, surely that’s enough to wipe out the savings you made buying the diesel in the first place (if you did save anything, most average mileages won’t!)

Dealerships charge £80 for regen DPF , while Ross-tech cable costs from £250. OP I would grab opportunity of STW kindness and make new friends ^^^

robdob – Member

I read no end of threads like this about VAG diesels. Why does anyone buy them?

When BMWs became more popular than Mondeos people needed a new brand to aspire to and chose Audi because of perceived quality.

Auto driver with a clutch here, just to be awkward. 🙂

The trouble with diesels/DPF etc is that the owners baby them about everywhere trying to eek out their diesel for every mpg they can get. This fills the EGR with sludge and stops it opening and closing correctly and also does for the DPF prematurely. MOT is the only time a lot of diesel vehicles see anywhere the limiter. They should be driven at motorway speeds for 15/20 minutes at least every 1000m. The times it has taken me a good 15 minutes to get a diesel through the smoke test where i’ve had to hang the back of the car out of the workshop and repeatedly cane the t*ts off of it to clear the system you would not believe. Every now and then, where safe and appropriate – you NEED to ‘drive it like you stole it’ 😈

I read no end of threads like this about VAG diesels.

I’ve owned about 6 VAGs now and not a single problem. I’ve also owned Peugeot, Renaults and Fords had loads of problems with all of them, a fair few of them costing thousands to fix which is one of the reasons I switched to VAG.

That’s at least 11 cars you’ve owned Drac, you probably don’t keep them to the age when things go wrong.

Today is a very sad day for me, my head is ruling my heart and my 21-year-old petrol Peugeot 605 is being driven to the breakers shortly. Madame will be driving and I’ll toddle along behind on the tandem peeling onions and suffering very bad hay fever. I bought it as a young businessman and it’s going now I’m a greying old man with a son who’ll be learning to drive next year. Over a third of my life. I’m half hoping it won’t start (it’d be the first time). 🙁

That’s at least 11 cars you’ve owned Drac, you probably don’t keep them to the age when things go wrong.

But yet some how the none VAG ones did. I just remembered a sensor played up one a Golf, they took it in and replaced with no quibble, let me have a courtesy car whilst it was being sorted and valeted the Golf before returning it to my place of choice.

oink1 – Member
The trouble with diesels/DPF etc is that the owners baby them about everywhere trying to eek out their diesel for every mpg they can get. This fills the EGR with sludge and stops it opening and closing correctly and also does for the DPF prematurely. MOT is the only time a lot of diesel vehicles see anywhere the limiter. They should be driven at motorway speeds for 15/20 minutes at least every 1000m. The times it has taken me a good 15 minutes to get a diesel through the smoke test where i’ve had to hang the back of the car out of the workshop and repeatedly cane the t*ts off of it to clear the system you would not believe. Every now and then, where safe and appropriate – you NEED to ‘drive it like you stole it’

Well what do expect, that’s the reason bought ‘dull’ high mpg mile munchers in the first place isn’t it? If you have to rag the tits off it mpg goes down and you might as well have saved yer money and bought a petrol instead….

I do know it’s the reason why I bought one of the last 1.9PD octavias, to (hopefully) avoid all this crap.

Had the “Emissions System Failure” light switch on in Germany.

Manual advice was “Drive slowly to nearest Audi service centre and have the fult rectified.” SATNAV had “Nearest Audi Service” option. Selected. Drove there (you’re never really far from one in Germany) – they were VW specialists. They dropped everything to sort us out. They replaced a €50 sensor for free (not sure how he wangled that, he couldn’t really explain), got his mate in the Audi garage to drive the part over and charged us €42 for the labour to diagnose and fix it; which is being covered by Bristol Audi, along with a tank of fuel and a valet for the inconvenience. It took all of an hour between walking in the door of the service centre and walking out with a fixed car. I did poo myself thinking it was the DPF though when the light first came on.

D-D if you are driving an Audi new enough to have a warranty, it must cost a bomb to get a floor laid in Brizzle.

D-D if you are driving an Audi new enough to have a warranty

That’s the thing duckie…the manufacturer’s warranty is gone, and in any case, it appears that it’s only 2 years 😯 in Germany (if the chap in the garage there is to be believed). So, I can’t understand how he got us the sensor for free. The warranty we have is the 12 month standard dealer’s warranty.

organic355 – Member
Heres what’ll happen- Audi fit everything then they’ll hand you their free ‘critical safety report’ which shows your discs are 70% worn.
they have already told me that the front tyres are 2mm off the legal limit.

So they have 3.6mm of tread left. New tyres have 7mm, so they are less than 50% worn!

LenHankie – Member
So they have 3.6mm of tread left. New tyres have 7mm, so they are less than 50% worn!

More like just over half worn, but still a fair bit left anyway.

Ah, depends whether you say they are fully worn at 1.6mm or once they are totally slick… 😉

At 3.6mm it’s nearly time to change IMO. I change when the worst tyre is at about 2.5mm. Aquaplaning and unacceptable stopping distances in the wet are what you get at 1.6mm especially if your car has tyres that resemble garden rollers.

Right.

1) you don’t have to rag the tits off a diesel normally, just make sure it gets longer trips not just short ones. If you only do short trips and the DPFs gets clogged, THEN ragging its tits off will help clear it, just the one time required. I took the EGR valve off my car to have a look, it had a light film of soot on it, after 90k miles. And I don’t rag it, I drive conservatively enough to get over 60mpg. Although to be fair it did get some action in Germany between 70 and 80k miles..!

2) There are enormous numbers of VAG diesels on the road. People who never have trouble never post on the forums, so that’s why the forums are full of people with faulty cars. Selection bias.

3) Traditional autos don’t have clutches, they have a fluid coupling thing, which is why they creep when you take your foot off the brake. They are less efficient than manuals

4) DSGs and other autos prevent you from driving in a manner that’s bad for the DMF, so they seem to be preserving their DMFs much better. TOUCH WOOD obv.. 😐

“sportsmatch – Member
Guess you had the engine management light on then the dpf symbol then the glow plug flashing at you which means its gone in to limp mode it wont pull your hat off had it in Feb on my audi a3 170hp tdi Quattro 57 plate take it in as you will only clog it up more and you will not get it regenerate now, they will plug into the laptop and do a force regeneration and hopefully not have to replace the dpf the exhaust pressure sensor is cheap enough think it was about £50 fitted when they done the force regen not had a problem since”

Exactly the same thing happened to me, DPF light came on, was on a long journey and had no option to pull over, carried on but thankfully no limp mode. Then the engine mgmt light came on the next day. Audi traced it to a faulty sensor and the DPF filter was already regeneratign itself, (we only use the car for long distances so almost no town driving). Cost a new sensor which is a fraction of the cost of the DPF so well worth checking its not just the sensor, but I guess the fault codes would help wit this.

During the discussion the person at Audi said it was pretty common and the DPF is not covered under warranty, ever! Sure he mentioned a new DPF/Cat was £1600 ish.

I’ve got a 10year old Audi that has needed quite a bit of work. I do as much as I can myself. The usual faults wiper motors, suspension, are straightforward and tutorials are on youtube.

Audi dealers’ labour charge is a complete rip-off…£200 to change oil etc. For jobs I cannot do I go to an independent Audi guy, the only problem there is that the parts may have to come from Audi….

But if you get the Audi part number then google it, you may find a much cheaper source in US/DE. I bought some suspension parts from USA and saved £750 a corner………. 😀

metalheart – Member

Well what do expect, that’s the reason bought ‘dull’ high mpg mile munchers in the first place isn’t it? If you have to rag the tits off it mpg goes down and you might as well have saved yer money and bought a petrol instead….

I did say now and then 😀 I drive an ‘oiler’ too FWIW

For all those ‘what’s the point in diesel’ folk, I drove Cardiff to Farnborough on Monday at 70mph and got 66mpg in my auto Passat. And it’s not even a bluemotion.