Hi All FYI

New to this and don't normally post on forums but think this should be shared for everyone's information. Especially if you are thinking of buying an S Max or have one that doesn't do a lot of miles, short journeys.

We have a Ford S Max 200 auto titanium X Sport, 47,000 miles bought through Ford Direct and Ford franchise dealer maintained including MOT's.

Recently noticed hesitation when pulling out of junctions followed by the engine light coming on.

Took to local Ford dealer who said the fuel vaporiser had failed £361.00 not great but you don't get much at a dealer fort hat price these days.

Went to pick car up - now needed a cat due to the regen not working which had blocked it now bill was £1500, not so great logged a complaint with Ford - still ongoing.

Couldn't understand the delay - Ford UK said the garage had ordered the wrong part

Finally think we are getting the car back and are informed that it now needs a DPF which they THOUGHT was included in the cat section of the exhaust. This alone is £1500 + vat and the total bill is now well over £2500. Needless to say the following conversation isn't printable.

After various threats the garage have come back to the original figure of £1500 - but watch this space as we haven't picked the car up yet.

Did some ringing round as the whole experience has been poorly communicated by the Dealership. spoke to a very helpful guy at another Ford Dealership who knew what he was talking about - Yes the cat and DPF are separate parts of the exhaust(took him seconds to realise this by looking on his screen) cost of cat £797inc vat, cost of DPF £1484 inc vat (garage told me £1500 + vat) just to clarify these costs are not fitted prices.

Correct me if I am wrong here but after doing some research on the web it appears that when the system isn't working the fuel injected into the exhaust to force a high temp regen burn is filtered back into the sump contaminating your oil and possibly bringing with it particles of carbon which may cause further damage?

Yes. the oil can also be diluted by the fuel, hence regular fuel & oil / oil filter changes are recommended in excess of Fraud's service intervals.

Diesel engines with DPF's are not suitable for multiple short journeys

On your car the fuel vapouriser does the fueling only and straight in to the exhaust just upstream of the dpf, therefore no worries about fuel in oil

Im sure the ford garage can regen the dpf if they tried again, can take a few goes after fuel vapouriser has been replaced, if the vaporiser could be removed then it could have been unblocked also, the fuel tip gets blocked with carbon deposits and easily picked out.

Unfortunatly most of the time they dont come out of exhaust without butchering it to remove.