Damaged Diesel Particulate Filters
Since lockdown we are seeing more and more damaged DPF ‘s a lot more than normal. It’s very tempting in these tough times to try and save money and cut corners when your car goes wrong especially where DPF’s are concerned as most people realise that when that dreaded DPF light comes on the dash it could be very expensive to fix.
We are seeing lots and lots of vehicles with irreversible damage to particulate filters due to overdosing on additive. This is often down to poor advise found in many places on the internet.
Please if you’re a garage owner, technician, forum enthusiast, or whatever if you see someone with DPF warning please do not just advise them to stick additive in and go thrash vehicle down the road additives are brilliant and they certainly do have their time and place.
The majority of brands that are widely available are designed to create extra heat to help the regeneration process, a particulate filter that’s restricted will already be generating a lot of heat add them together and high engine speed it just leads to costly disaster if the DPF or other components have melting .
I often see where multiple bottles have been used so this increases the amount of additive and therefore even further heat in the exhaust.
I can only assume that if one bottle doesn’t fix it then let’s add another one, we often see two or three bottles in the car. This damage caused is certainly very expensive ranging from melted temperature sensors to melted DPF core’s this can also have knock-on effects we have had one case where the blocked DPF had then caused a turbo failure.
On average 65% of vehicle’s that we see do not need a DPF clean and those that do we can clean on the car at low temperatures avoiding damage. Of course, you also have to consider why a self-cleaning filter is blocked in the first place? if you don’t find out why this has happened then it will quickly block again.
So please if you are unsure of pressure in DPF or whether it’s safe to add an additive then best advise do not add any at all. Seek advice from someone who can fully test and ensure avoid the huge costs of having to replace melted DPF.
We are trained and accredited members of the official DPF Doctor network for everything DPF and SCR related.
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