ummm could the DPF give you issues if you accidentally ran the car on Petrol for a 15 miles till it cut out?

DPF is the least of your worries if you did that!

The fuel pump depends on diesel for its lubrication. Petrol is not oily so you may have lunched your pump, which is just about the most expensive component in the car!

ummm could the DPF give you issues if you accidentally ran the car on Petrol for a 15 miles till it cut out? i seem to have a power/limp mode problem since the fuel drain and new fuel filter.
interwebby tells me all sort of (horror) stories, including massive soot issues out the engine clogging up most things cos of higher burn temps of petrol…

I’d be more worried about the seals in the high pressure fuel pump!

Eolys = brand name for cerium. Yes a PSA/Citroen/Ford joint venture. Ash is not always a bad thing, it depends how the engine is designed. Some like the Ash others don’t – hence the “low ash” oils you buy.

I’d be more worried about the seals in the high pressure fuel pump!

+1

what some do in this instance is dump a small amount of 2 stroke oil in the tank – though tbh, you may have covered enough mileage for this to be no use!

AdBlue is used for the reduction of NOx – although a side effect is that you can run a LOT less EGR if you have an SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction – using AdBlue) which brings your soot down and so much slower and lower volume DPF filling.

Ah.. that’s the same thing as they use in the USA on VWs then.. do European passenger cars use it too?

umm so i guess i cannot reach into the engine and put some Vaseline on the fuel pump then 🙁

Mol, commercial vehicles in the Europe that use it, have a very obvious filler cap, normally located near the diesel filler cap. Passenger cars in the UK normally have the reservoir filled under the bonnet as the usage is much smaller. Only [passenger] vehicles I know running it in Europe are Mercedes as they developed the technology with the German ministry*..?

*just a note on that, every time Adblue is used, money goes straight to the German exchequer! shrewd bunch or what..

Whoa! Talk about can of worms!

Anyway, you’ve all convinced me that petrol is the way to go.

Ta!

Only [passenger] vehicles I know running it in Europe are Mercedes as they developed the technology with the German ministry*..?

Yeah – Mercedes are the only company I know definitely using SCR in european passenger cars currently, but there may be others. I believe for pas cars it will be a service fill item (similar to Eolys described above). Once Euro 6 legislation comes in, you’ll see a lot more SCR in larger engined diesels whilst smaller ones (<2 litres) you can still get away with just EGR and a decent calibration and hit the NOx target.

Improved economy and lower emissions, cool 🙂

Diesel exhaust causes more attributable deaths in the UK than car accidents do. So bugger off anyone who says it’s a “moneygrabbing scam” or “not a big problem”. You’re all right Jack, of course.

(source:

The study, “Public Health Impacts of Combustion Emissions in the United Kingdom,” concluded that diesel emissions from cars, planes and power plants contribute to an estimated 13,000 premature deaths annually in the United Kingdom. In particular, the analysis found that emissions from cars and trucks were responsible for slightly more premature deaths than car accidents in the UK based on data from 2005.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es2040416
)

Diesel is not lower emissions – its lower CO2 and due to the Kyoto Treaty they attract less tax, but there is no getting away from the fact its a filthy fuel and full of additives to prevent all the disadvantages of diesel – treat the smell, suppress soot production, prevent it from turning to jelly when cold and a whole host of other problems with diesel.

njee20 – Member

After a year of short journeys (50-100 miles a day)

Sorry… when did 100 miles a day become “short journeys”?

When it’s done in four/five mile chunks, with a break in between each one 😀

You’re right on one – it does have additives to stop it freezing, but only in winter. The smell is countered by removing sulphur, not adding anything. And soot production is handled by DPFs which is what this thread is about.

It can be burned fairly cleanly if you aren’t booting it. Biggest problem is with NOx emissions.

My van came out of the factory a few months before they started fitting the DPF. It’s 9 years old with 90,000 miles on the clock.

How many people has it killed?

In my Fiesta Diesel, I cover about 30k with the majority of that pottering round town with a learner who is not the most mechanical sympathetic.

I can tell when it’s getting clogged up just by the way it drives as it comes a little less responsive so a run at 70 ( ahem ) down the motorway will clear it.

Touch wood, no lights have come on it but I wouldn’t have a Diesel if I didn’t need a car for work its just a Diesel is easier for the students to get used to and my mileage warrants it but anything less than 25 k I’d go for petrol.

Diesel is not lower emissions – its lower CO2

Not true unfortunately – a diesel engine will produce less CO and HC (as well as CO2) than a petrol engine but, as mol says, will produce more NOx and PM.

However the emissions limits now are so tight and so close together that it is really only CO2 that you can easily call between the two. Moving to Euro 6 cars are going to be pretty damn clean in the grand scheme of things.

Interestingly for this thread, from Euro 6 gasoline engines will also need to pass a Particulate Mass test (i.e. soot) the same as diesels – can’t see this bringing the need for DPFs unless the calibration engineers are crap, but the particulates released from diesels and gasoline engines will be, at maximum, the same from Euro 6 onwards (0.005 g/km).

My Toyota dealer recently told me that they’ve been told not to sell Yaris diesels to motoring schools due to DPF related problems.