A colleague has a year-old car that yesterday lit up the DPF light. Colleague looked in handbook, which apparently says "you must drive at 50mph" but doesn't specify any duration (put yourself in the mind of a non-technical person here). She managed to touch 50 on the way home (there was traffic) but the light stayed on.
This morning it was joined by the engine management light. As it happened, the car was going in for service.
Dealer has effectively blamed driving style (car has done 15,000 miles in a year, does 2 x 20 mile commutes every day, and the owner doesn't hang about) and not following the procedure of "driving on the motorway for half an hour", which is not mentioned in the handbook. Dealer will charge £80 to "strip and clean" the DPF and effectively is telling the owner it is her fault.
IMO this is outrageous - the car is effectively not fit for purpose, is under warranty, and the owner is being charged for the 'fix' which won't of course 'repair' it in any way in that the feature remains.
How long can the industry sustain this nonsense?
Is it still possible to buy a non-DPF diesel? I think I'll hang on to mine.
|
|
Scary stuff. The industry will sustain it for aslong as people buy the cars.
|
My last car was a EuroIV Mondeo TDCi. Slightly higher CO2 emmisions vs non EuroIV. Fuel economy not what I expected but not that bad.
Current car is a Mazda6 with DPF. It has shown one or twice symptoms of DPF regeneration. I tend to accelerate hard but do not speed* - so could save fuel but it's the fastest legal way from A-B. So maybe I'm being lucky. At times I can do a lot of town driving and short journeys and around 14000 miles since new almost a year ago.
* It amuses me those right behind you and then you accelerate and they're nowhere near. But then catch up and want to go faster. To have caught up they were speeding but did not accelerate.
|
|
|
