Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

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Harrihealey02
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Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by Harrihealey02 »

Hi all, I've had an issue with my DPF filter since May and it’s been in and out of the garage since July, after mobile experts couldn’t rectify the problem. I am getting the code P2002 which is a DPF below efficiency bank 1 error. Before I had the P2002 code I had two other codes which were the turbo pressure threshold not met and the DPF soot accumulation Code. After A regen was performed, tonnes of black smoke was coming out the exhaust when accelerating and also when starting the engine. This surely means the DPF is cracked? As the smoke shouldn’t be visible at all with a DPF as it has nowhere else to go other than through it. The dealer performed an update on the car and since then there has been no smoke that’s noticeable apart from a whiff of grey smoke once it’s been started in the morning after a long run the day before. Volkswagen said they are awaiting a TSB from Volkswagen as they said they are not going to replace the DPF and wait for the factory to provide a solution.
Is there any way I can push them faster to do something as it’s annoying constantly having an engine light on. I am not a mechanic but I think that they are avoiding the replacement of the DPF due to the cost maybe! Has anyone else had a P2002 code before and how was it resolved?
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by iichel »

Ask for a replacement vehicle and leave the car there, before you do any more damage.
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by monkeyhanger »

Do you mean DPF (for diesel) or GPF (for petrol)?

So since the regen you've had no more black soot, but do have a constant engine management yellow light to indicate you're in need of a regen?

In your position, I'd think about getting an MOT emissions check and see if would pass an MOT.

How's your fuel economy? When the wife's Polo GTI+ is regenning, the mpg is abysmal - dropping from a normal 35-38mpg to around 22mpg.
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by RUM4MO »

I'd be doing the same as advised above, ie get an MOT station to test the emissions for you - then if it fails, that car is currently not fit or legal to be used on public roads - then VW dealer must sort it out for you FOC as long as the regular servicing has been done as per VW recommendations.
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by Harrihealey02 »

Thanks for the replies. The first problem occurred in May when I got a flashing diesel element light and an engine light come on at the same time. A mobile engineer came out and said the DPF is full of soot and so he performed a static regen and cleared the codes (after that is when I started getting thick black smoke from exhaust) I thought it was just going to last a few days as it was all the soot coming out after the regen. A day later the engine light came on and soot wasn’t going away. A week went by and I called out another engineer and they performed another regen and cleared the codes. A few days later the engine light came on and car was still emitting black smoke, so I just thought I’d leave it a few weeks and see what happens. I took it to the dealer in July as smoke was still happening and engine light constantly on. They performed an update and that stopped the smoke but still having the odd grey smoke at start in the morning and the engine light still on. It’s now been 2 months and still not heard anything back other than they are following it up with the factory. A TSB has been put in place and apparently has been on their system for over a year and has not been rectified yet.
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by monkeyhanger »

I assume you've got a 1.6TDI SEL? Seems tobe tge only TDI in the Polo line-up.

Our old Audi A1 (2015) had a 116ps variant of the 1.6TDI and it was a great engine if you were doing enough miles to keep the DPF clean. For my wife's 8 mile commute, the DPF always seemed to be a bit choked up. I started to use it for my (then) 20 mile each way commute and I could hammer it and still get 65mpg.

I presume they've knocked it down to 95ps for emissions comlpiance and made a mess of the software for DPF management in the process.

What's your average journey/commute distance? TDIs need a good 6 miles before the oil is hot, let alone the DPF.

My Dad's 63 plate Golf GTD has been running poorly for the past year. At 145k miles, the DPF was full to capacity with incombustible ash (what's left after the soot burns).

He gave the car a bottle of Wynns DPF cleaner and just put it in for its MOT - the emissions were immeasurably clean. Seems to have destroyed the ash build up - probably would only be a temporary fix for you as yours will be full of soot. You could try Millers diesel additive - my mpg is up about 8% with 80ml in a tank - the diesel
burns so much cleaner as it increases the Cetane number, making the diesel just a bit more volatile and produces less soot as it burns more completely.
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by Andy Beats »

As others have said, there are things you can do to clean the DPF relatively cheaply.
You can try fuel additives, although I'm sceptical, or you could get one of those 'Terraclean' vans round to your house/work and get it done more thoroughly.
As a final resort, there are companies will remove the DPF and clean it our for you or exchange it for a clean one.
Whatewer you do, DO NOT pay VW prices to replace it.
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by Simonz »

I think these engines are being deleted by VW, Seat have done so with the Ibiza. Realistically the problems and pollution caused is a big negative compared to cleaner petrol TSI and ultimately Hybrid electric which is fast becoming mainstream.
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by monkeyhanger »

Andy Beats wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 8:50 am As others have said, there are things you can do to clean the DPF relatively cheaply.
You can try fuel additives, although I'm sceptical, or you could get one of those 'Terraclean' vans round to your house/work and get it done more thoroughly.
As a final resort, there are companies will remove the DPF and clean it our for you or exchange it for a clean one.
Whatewer you do, DO NOT pay VW prices to replace it.
Most people's issues with DPFs are:

1. High mileage cars with DPFs that are irreversibly (through regeneration) filled with incombustible ash. People are successfully having the ash removed by an additive (Terraclean or otherwise) or even taking the DPF off and pressure washing! It's not really feasible for soot build-up to have your DPF cleaned out - regeneration should be taking care of soot.

2. People doing short journeys constantly so that the DPF doesn't get a chance to heat up and burn off the soot passively, so has to do so actively (forced regens).

3. People driving their DPF equipped cars normally and still experiencing DPF regeneration issues.

Seems to me that without knowing the OPs driving patterns, they could be experiencing scenarios 2 or 3.

When DPFs first came in on the Golf, my Dad got a new 58 plate Golf 170TDI GT with DSG gearbox and DPF.

I bought a manual version of pretty much the same car a "GT Sport" with the same engine and DPF 4 months later.

Mine had loads of initial forced regens. The VW techs replaced the cylinder head after investigating for a leaky injector and finding a tiny burr internally. It didn't help, the problems were back in a week. They then found out about a new engine management system software and applied it - that cured my issues.

So VAG not getting their act together with software when they introduce a new power variant is a real possibility.

If it is software, a new DPF won't fix things. However, those black and grey clouds of smoke does sound like the DPF matrix is cracked, unless there's some kind of over-pressure bypass going on to expel the soot.
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by monkeyhanger »

Simonz wrote: Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:03 am I think these engines are being deleted by VW, Seat have done so with the Ibiza. Realistically the problems and pollution caused is a big negative compared to cleaner petrol TSI and ultimately Hybrid electric which is fast becoming mainstream.
A TDI with DPF and adblue system is cleaner than a TSI with a GPF. Once you have adblue to take care of the NOx on the TDI and both engine types have a particulate filter, the only thing left is CO2 which is proportional to your fuel usage. A TDI doing 30-50% more mpg than the equivalent TSI is putting out 30-50% less CO2.

A GPF is more forgiving of shorter journeys than a DPF. Makes more sense to put a diesel in a big car mire likely to do big miles than a small car that generally will do fewer miles with the average buyer of those 2 car types.

VAG are heavily invested in TDI tech - they just changed to TDI power for the Audi S4 and are likely to for the S5 and S6 too.
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by Andy Beats »

Talk of additives got me looking around.
Seen some glowing reviews for stuff called ARCHOIL AR6400-DMAX DPF cleaner, so I've bought some of that for the wife's Evoque.
Unsure just now as to whether I'll use it in a preventative manner, or just have it in the background if the DPF light ever comes on.
Probably the former, seeing as it's not hugely expensive.
Despite her driving being far from ideal for DPFs, we've never had any DPF issues in umpteen cars.
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by Harrihealey02 »

Finally some news!
Took it to a different dealer, the Romford one and this time they identified an issue to be with the EGR cooler. The codes I found before I took it in were to do with the DPF so surprised they only looked at the EGR cooler. They replaced it with a new one (£973) under warranty, however as driving around the next day the engine light came on AGAIN!! Scanned codes and found P2002 which was the SAME code I’ve had all these months. The car drives smoother and doesn’t have a surge of power around 2.2k revs which it used to, it’s equal across the whole rev range now.
I believe that this EGR cooler was the cause of the issues I’ve been having. EGR stuck closed, causing rich fuel mixture and high temperatures with more NOX created clogging up DPF, then after having the regen must have incinerated some of the DPF material due to it clogged up so much having so much pressure and heat on it (faulty EGR cooler) and now the DPF is completely caked. It’s going back to dealer on 29th October. I’ve written a note saying REPLACE DPF. Every time engine is cold and it’s started I get a stong diesel burnt smell like the old diesel cars used to make. When hard acceleration even when engine is at optimum temperate, I can see smoke in the rear mirror when a cars headlights are on.
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by vc-10 »

A 2018 car shouldn't be producing smoke even under hard acceleration. Glad that you're at least getting somewhere with it!
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by Andy Beats »

Our Evoque had a DPF fault from new, by god it was a pain.
It hadn't even done 1000 miles and the EML was coming on every week, and every Thursday it would go in for them to do a forced regen and send us on our way.
It was obvious to anyone that these forced regens shouldn't be required every week on a 1000 mile car. :?
After 5 weeks of this I escalated it, told them to keep the car until they were absolutely sure it was fixed, threatened them with rejection of the car and demanded a loan car.
Once they actually replaced the DPF, end of problem and they sent us a nice wee cheque (£300) to apologise for the inconvenience. 8)
Touch wood, no EML since.
Harrihealey02
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Re: Volkswagen reluctant to replace DPF on 1 1/2 year old car

Post by Harrihealey02 »

How long do you have to threaten them with rejection of the car? Even know I still want it at least that might force them to replace the DPF. I’m going to make it clear to them that I’m not having it back unless it’s completely fixed. No more regens and heavy fuel smell. I know there’s a fault with the DPF on mine because I’ve got a friend with a VW golf 1.6 same year 19 plate and it has a smooth vapour odour smell (hard to explain) and it’s never smelt like acrid diesel.
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