just fixed my particular problem, with a 'forced regen' by a ford dealer. he said he's seen this particular scenario loads - the car tries to do a regen and fails (cause the driver got out). tries again... driver gets out too early.. computer clocks up another failed regen. eventually it seems, there's a line of code in there somewhere that says, something like.. if you tried to do a regen more than x times, well it must be ash, not soot. And throws an 'ash' error. And locks up.

car's been fine - in fact bagfuls more poke - ever since. I don't know what button Mr Ford presses on his magic computer to clear the "ash in dpf" code & then do a full regen, but my 30 quid code reader doesn't have it and nor does my garage's 500 quid one. hence their sending it to the ford dealer.

happy here for now with no remapping or brick cleaner lol

Having recently bought a 2007  2ltr Focus Titanium that is presenting DPF probs all your comments and advice have been very interesting though somewhat disappointing.

It occurs to me, from what I've read and heard from other quarters, is that Ford have sold a product that was and is not fit for purpose and no matter what is

attempted, will never be Fit For Purpose. It was sold with an inherent weakness.