Hi Folks,

Its been a long time since I posted on these forums as its been a long time since I've had a Focus.

I picked up a 2021 Ford Focus Active Estate 1.5 diesel auto at the beginning of August with a shade over 18k on the clock. I love the thing, especially the fact that its an auto.

The week after picking it up it took the family down to Devon for a nice holiday, so a nice blast on the motorway to make sure it was all good.

The week after we got back after a few short journeys around our area I had the orange warning coming up saying the DPF was full and I needed to drive it to clear it. I was on a semi long drive anyway so I just extended it by a little. I had the message come up saying cleaning was started and then shortly the one saying it was complete.

Just over a week later, I got the warning again. Again, I had done some short journeys in the week as my work is a grand total of 3.5 miles from my house. Over the weekend, going out with the family we covered a decent amount of miles and it said that the cleaning was done again.

I got the next warning up just 2 days later. I thought maybe it hadn't actually completed the cycle, so a few days later I took the car a couple of junctions up the M5 and back, well over an hour of driving. I had just over a week of driving before the warning came up again. This is when I started to think it was getting a bit excessive.

I took the car for a drive, and got both messages about the cleaning started and finished. Parked the car up and went inside. A couple of hours later, I got in the car to go and collect my son from school. I had barely gotten off the drive before the warning message came up again. The car had not been driven since I last got the message that the filter had finished its cleaning cycle.

I have a warranty for 12 months on the car through Spoticar, but looking at the bumf it starts the DPF issues are not covered, so thats no good.

I've looked around online, but can't seem to find someone with the same issues as me. I'm wondering if the cleaning cycle isn't completing correctly and that I need to do a static regen. If I get Forscan and the cable and get it to do a static regen, will this solve the issue? I've heard that it could be the vaporiser having an issue and not letting the cycle complete correctly and that Forscan will show me if the regen is failing. I only have a basic reader at the moment and there are no issues showing.

My Dad, who loves to get involved with the car issues of the family, is saying to just take it in to our local garage who we've used for years before going the Forscan route, but my thoughts are whats the harm in trying this out first?

Thanks in advance for any advice, its much appreciated.

Be advised, regen is all about heat and engine speed, not vehicle speed.

Blasting down the motorway is good, but no good if you're doing 60/70MPH and the engine revs are only about 1500RPM

As I don't know your car, do you have paddle shift?

If not, are you able to hold the transmission in a certain gear?

Ideally, the whole time the vehicle is in regen mode the engine revs should be kept to a minimum of 2,800RPM and a maximum of 3,800 RPM for a constant 10 minutes, it will fully complete the regen cycle then

If you're failing regen cycles keep an eye on your oil level and change the oil & filter often.

Try and use the best quality fuel that you can

Unfortunately I don't have a manual mode. I can change into low range, but everything I have seen is that this shouldn't be used to hold the revs higher.

I had also seen that the modern regen cycle on the newer models was able to do a regen at regular revs rather than needing to be held at higher revs. Obviously they were wrong.

Will a static regen run through the Forscan system solve the issue of the regen not completing the normal way? I saw on another post that someone who did a lot of shorter trips would run the static regen cycle every 2 weeks to clean the dpf on their Mondeo.

Oil is all fine at the moment. The dealer who sold me the car did a full service on it, including an oil and filter change. About the only thing they did right during the whole process, but thats another story.

The regen mapping should be holding a lower gear during regen as it's auto.  If it isn't mapped like that, they've missed a trick.  (IMO Ford diesel mapping never did match that of German brands.)

Don't think there's a vaporiser on the 1.5.  Personally I think you've got a sensor fault, if you get Forscan you can watch live data for pressure sensor and soot sensor.

If it turns out there's always quite high pressure (meaning only a small amount of extra soot triggers a regen) then the DPF is probably already quite full of ash, which wouldn't surprise me given the low mileage and your own short journeys.

51 minutes ago, Passman86 said:

Will a static regen run through the Forscan system solve the issue of the regen not completing the normal way?

Yes, very much encouraged.

FORScan will also see if you've got any codes related to DPF

FORScan diagnostic software:

On 4/7/2024 at 8:59 PM, unofix said:

FORScan (for use with Windows Laptop) : https://forscan.org/download.html

It's what many Ford owners use including some Ford technicians.

vLinker FS, cable for laptop: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vgate-vLinker-Adapter-FORScan-MS-CAN/dp/B0952P4MLP

vLinker FD, for android phone: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vgate-Bluetooth-vLinker-Scanner-Diagnostic/dp/B08H82WC8L

vLinker FD+, for iPhone: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vgate-Bluetooth-vLinker-Scanner-Diagnostic/dp/B08H8JHWP2

 

Search Tag:   FORScan123