Hi all,

I have been trawling the forums and have found a lot of topics on this issue but wanted to explain mine to see if there was some accurate advice please.

My engine light has been on, along with the Engine Systems Fault display for about two weeks now. Took it to the garage last week as kept getting a spluttering, almost misfire when driving at around 50mph. They plugged it in and it was a DPF issue and they advised to take it for a long hard drive. I did and actually the issues seemed to have resolved but only for about 2-3 days when yesterday the car went into limp mode several times whilst on the dual carriage way. Managed to hobble back to the garage who say the codes now say the Fuel Additive is empty. They have topped it up but the lights remain, as do the codes even though its topped up. They have advised I drive it hard again and see if it helps. As yet I haven't done that as am slightly nervous to. 

Alot of the other posts advise that the issue may be related to the injectors and to be honest one of the injectors on the outside looks very gunky and black. I would have liked to think the garage would have thought of this but I just feel like the symptoms of both the DPF and the faulty injector is what I am dealing with. Loss of power and spluttering at high revs.

Alot of other posts advise that the lights wont go off until the ECU is remapped so maybe I am worrying for nothing and the issue is now resolved.

Many many thanks in advance!

Ask them for a static regen. I needed mine doing a few days ago and it had the engine near 4000rpm to do its thing, you'll not get that from just a hard drive.

 

The lights and codes do indeed go away without needing a remap.

Thanks Bongo.

Do you mean they put it on their ramp and burn it off that way? Or to find out the true fault?

 

If they think it's a DPF problem and a long hard drive will fix it, there is a proper way to do this which is a computer controlled static regen. If that's not the cause of the problem then I don't know, but that's a bit more of a scientific approach than just driving it at least.

On mine the fluid was gone and the DPF clogged up, sounds like what yours is doing. So what they did is refill the fluid and static regen to force the engine to heat up enough to clear the DPF.

Yes it sounds very similar. All the fault codes were related to low/empty fuel additive so they insisted this was the issue I guess I am just concerned that the warning lights have remained.

I will give it a 30-40 hard minute drive tomorrow and see if that helps and then perhaps get them to reset the lights afterwards.

Thank you so much again for the swift replies.

Yes, you dont want to have any lights left after this. If the car is working fine then any codes should clear without too much hassle and you certainly don't need a remap just to clear codes. 

There was a problem with mine where we couldn't force it to regen whilst any codes were present, but we had to regen it to clear the code. Bit of a Catch 22. But the point is even if it gets stuck in a strange situation like that, find a way to sort it rather than just leaving it because these DPF problems seem to stick the car into limp mode very easily. 

It is best to have your own fault code reader. Eg from tunnelrat electronics. Less than 20 quid. This can be used to clear codes also. Use free Forscan software, well it’s free for windows devices and about 6 quid for Apple or android app. I think forscan can do the forced regen but I have never tried that myself.

If I get a way to plug my laptop into my car (is USB to OBD II a thing?) I can do my own forced regens? I've needed it done twice in less than a year so far because my DPF didn't have it's 75k service or whatever it needs. This would save me alot of hassle and maybe the original poster too. 

https://tunnelrat-electronics.fwscart.com/

I have the usb one and wifi one .  I originally got the usb one to use with my windows laptop.

I then bought the wifi one to use with a smartphone so I keep the wifi one in the glovebox.

I got them both from this seller.

the links tab on tunnel rat website can be used to get Forscan free of charge for windows.

For phone get Forscan from app store for about 6 quid.

Even if you can't do the work on cars yourself these are handy to have so you can tell to some degree if garages are bulls***ing you