Hi All, 

The amber engine management light in my ST3 tdci popped on this morning on my daily drive to work. It came on half way through the journey and stayed on. Booked in at the stealers tomorrow but just wanted to know if I'm good to drive it? I didn't notice any loss in power etc. Hadn't realised the light had gone on for a while. Is this likely to be a DPF issue or does this have a separate light?

Cheers

Wayne 

It could be absolutely anything. No one on here can give you an answer as without reading the fault codes its impossible to guess. Even if it was a dpf issue it may or may not have a different light for the fault your car has. I know this answer is vague but well you get the picture 🙂  Car "should"  be ok to drive for now. How much are they charging you for the diagnostic check?

Yeah, obviously understand that there's no way anyone on here can diagnose without the codes, just wondered about the DPF since I've never had any issues in 3 years and never seen the engine light either. Dealer is charging 85 quid which is stupid, but hey ho 

any independant garage would charge you around £40-50. But they might not have ford specific diagnositc equipment. ALot of members on this forum recommend downloading the free software forscan onto a laptop or avaliable for iphone, ipad or android devices. Then you can buy for around £15 the cable/adaptor which plugs into your car. Im clueless as a mechanic but I used this a few times on my car and got the codes/diagnostics I needed to make decisions and get an idea what was wrong for free 🙂  Forscan is near dealership quality software and way better than what alot of indy garages use.

What makes you think it could be DPF related Wayne?

Edited December 18, 20196 yr by guy woodbridge
added another question

Sounds like a good investment, I'll look into getting the Forscan, just need to car over Christmas so needs sorting. Not sure it is the DPF but not familiar enough with other potential faults on this engine. Tbh, it was actually running fine, if the light wasn't on I wouldn't have thought any different!

So, the garage reckons the fuel vaporiser has failed and this is stopping the DPF from regenerating..... £500. Crazy. Even after replacing it might not be able to do a forced regen which could mean a new DPF. Surely the DPF can't be that bad if I've taken it in after driving 20 miles with the light on?

Vaporiser is only £120 max. £380 seems alot for labour to fit and regen. 

I'm not surprised I'm being fleeced for it. Hoping that the price includes the diagnostic as well. Hoping the DPF isn't shagged too, how much can I expect to pay for that?

I'm only guessing but probably £500 from ford at least. 

I've done quite a few vaporisers on transit,ranger, Mondeo, etc and only 1 transit needed a new dpf after attempting many regens. So you should be ok. Quite a few ranger owners fit the vapourisers themselves and just drive them until the light goes out without doing a forced regen. 

Nice one, cheers Ian, hopefully it will regen ok then. Is there any reason why the vaporiser fails? Quality of fuel, driving style and conditions, dodgy design?

Poor design in my opinion. The vapouriser gets blocked up with hard carbon deposits at the end where it protrudes into the exhaust, stopping the flow of fuel vapour. Sometimes you can remove the vaporiser and unblock it with a pick . Also common on transits ( but no so on focus I don't think) the glow plug feed fuse  on the vapouriser would blow and stop it working . 

So first when diagnosing is to check the fuse. Then check the vapouriser fuel feed pipe for blockage by applying a vacuum to the pipe that goes to vapouriser. If a vacuum is maintained then the pipe end is blocked. 

Good news (kind of) vaporiser replaced and the forced DPF regen ran fine first time so no additional work required. Does feel smoother and more responsive so wonder if it had been clogged up for a while. Cheers for all the advice 

So... Knew it was too good to be true. Driving to work on Monday and the engine management light came on again, limped to the local ford dealer to read the fault codes, broken sensor in the DPF. Broken when they replaced the fuel vaporiser? New sensor ordered but they cannot remove the sensor as it's stuck solid. Heat etc. Won't touch it. Having to get someone to drill it out and retap the thread!! Has anyone else seen this or is this dealer just crap???