DPF regens and 'premium diesel'

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Tue 19 Feb 2013 17:56
DPF regens and 'premium diesel' - john farrar
Does anybody know if the continual use of one of the 'premium' diesel fuels decreases the frequency of DPF regens if compared with the standard brews?
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Tue 19 Feb 2013 18:09
DPF regens and 'premium diesel' - Collos25

Doesn´t make any difference

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Tue 19 Feb 2013 18:54
DPF regens and 'premium diesel' - scorpion222
I've run DPF equipped cars for about ten years now, the earliest being a Citroen C5 from 2002 (02). The early ones did high mileage, but the last 3 (BMW525D, C4 Picasso and since January Honda CRV) have never needed any work as they have cleared their DPFs themselves. They are relatively low mileage (8k pa) about 50/50 urban and longer distance. I use premium fuel every third tank-full and regular diesel from 'brand' outlets such as Shell and BP the rest of the time.

I've read the horror stories, but the BMW was 6 years old when I sold it with 60k on the clock of which 24k were mine over 3 years, so I'm fairly sure that non-supermarket fuel with the occasional use of premium is sufficient to avoid the worst problems one hears about.

Before anyone comments that I'm daft buying a diesel for such low mileage, as the Honda dealer did recently, I've driven diesels on business in Europe since the late 80s, and in the UK since 1992, and I just prefer the driving characteristics. Having had petrol hire cars in South Africa in 2011 and New Zealand in December 2012 I wouldn't dream of switching back.
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Tue 19 Feb 2013 19:36
DPF regens and 'premium diesel' - Brit_in_Germany

Here in Germany, Aral Ultimate is the only diesel which does not contain bio-diesel. For three years, this is the only fuel I have used and have never had a regen light showing despite an annual mileage of about 8000 and a daily commute of 15 miles each way with half of that being reasonably slow traffic. I suspect that BP Ultimate is the same fuel since they belong to the same group as Aral. So, although not a reliable experiment, I believe that premium diesel can reduce regens.

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Tue 19 Feb 2013 21:31
DPF regens and 'premium diesel' - craig-pd130

I don't believe use of premium diesel does reduce regeneration frequency. It seems most DPF-equipped cars do a regeneration not just when the sensors indicate there is a high soot loading in the matrix, but also on a mileage-interval basis (presumably as a failsafe to ensure the DPF matrix stays unclogged).

Certainly the DPF-related literature I've seen from Ford, Vauxhall and Jaguar indicates a mileage-based regeneration regime as well as a when-it's-needed regen. My current Volvo is the same -- it does a regen about every 600 - 700 miles.

As an experiment, I used Shell V-Power diesel exclusively in my Volvo V60 for 10 successive fill-ups. Compared with the previous 10 fill-ups (mostly Shell Fuelsave), I gained just over 1mpg, or an economy improvement of about 2.5%. This offset some of the additional cost, but not all. Regeneration frequency and duration wasn't noticeably different.

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