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This is probably a bad idea... but have any of you tried DPF cleaning chemicals?

ship69

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Hello

This is probably a bad idea... but have any of you folks tried using chemicals to clean a blocked DPF?

Background
After a few weeks of driving around town with little if any motorway driving (I know, my bad) my "DPF (Check System)" warning light has come on and my turbo has stopped kicking in (like it usually does at c. 2000 RPM) on my Honda Accord EX I-DTEC from 2008.

My local Honda dealer want to charge me £150 to do a regeneration. But my local garage is suggesting that I go to Halfords and ask them what the best chemical is, put it into my tank and drive it 50 miles at fairly high revs - i.e. "2000 to 3000 RPM"). Luckily my tank is fairly empty - c. 100 miles left in the tank so I should be able to create a fairly high concentration of any chemical additives that I put into the tank.

6HAD thinks that this is a bad idea. But have any of you tried using DPF additive chemicals yourselves?

e.g. Have you tried any of these?

- Archoil AR6400-D MAX Professional Diesel Engine, Turbo, DPF & CAT Cleaner Concentrate
- Cataclean Diesel DPF & Catalytic Converter Cleaner
- Forte DPF Cleaner and Regenerator
- Millers Oils DPF Diesel Particulate Filter Cleaner and Regenerator
- Redex RADD2201A Diesel fuel System Cleaner
- STP GST66200EN Diesel Particulate Filter Cleaner,
- Wynn's Diesel Particulate Filter Cleaner,
- Wynns WY12264 Xtreme Diesel System Clean Powerful One Tank Clean-Up,
- Wynn's 28263 Diesel Particulate Filter Cleaner

With thanks

J
 
I've not tried any of the above so can't comment on their effectiveness, but my two penneth would be wary of putting stuff in the tank without obeying the recommended dilution to make it 'stronger', as you might find yourself adding a high pressure fuel pump and / or injectors to your shopping list.

Personally I'm very un-trusting of anything that goes in the fuel to 'clean' the engine. My gut feeling is products that make fantastic claims contain mostly snake oil. Deposits built up over thousands of miles aren't going to magically vanish over a couple of hundred. If it was as easy as that it would be in the fuel to begin with. The last place I'd go for an informed opinion on something like this is the pimply youths at Halfords :eek:

The DPF cleaners that physically remove and force fluid directly through the DPF itself may help, as may a forced regen, but if the DPF is just worn out (thereby loosing its ability to clean itself) it will most likely get blocked up again pretty quickly. If on the other hand if it's just choked by a stint of sooty driving maybe it'll come good.

Let us know how you get on. It's only a matter of time before my DPF starts playing up. It seems to be inherent in the technology.
 
Already replied to your other thread. In my experience none of this stuff works. There are no shortcuts.
 
I remember putting some stuff called Bardall into my 500cc BMW oil sump alleged to improve the silkiness and fuel efficiency of the engine, guess what?? it totalled the engine, harsh lesson learned and not forgotten, if the bloke who designed and built it then run it as he tells you. Too many "experts" and much too much guff handed out. If you are not already in limp mode then give it some wellie, in third or if you are auto then stick it in S and rev the nuts out of it, These motors can take it.
 
A forced regen by itself will maybe work for a month at best. If you plan on keeping the car I'd look in to sending it off for professional cleaning (It will still need to be forced regend after being refitted to the car to reset soot sensor levels I believe). That would be the cheapest option which will buy you some time. How much time I don't know but if you want to keep the car you're going to have to factor in the risk. Replacement is very expensive (believe me I know) and even an aftermarket DPF at half the price will still set you back near £800 once its refitted and regened. I'm not going to speak about removal because its been discussed endlessly on here.
There is no cheap way out of this one I'm afraid. How much do you like the car, maybe get the DPF cleaned and trade it in?
 
Had a similar issue, had two forced regen by local Honda which lasted about two hundred miles before the light came back on. In the end took car to a Independent Honda garage who removed the DPF sent it away to be cleaned and refitted a few days later-cost £600 with a life time guarantee, just pay for labor to remove/refit. So far covered about 10k miles with no issue. You may try these: https://www.dpfcentr.../find-a-dealer/ seem to have good reviews!

inclined to agree with F6HAD about chemicals in the fuel!!
 
smokingman said:
Had a similar issue, had two forced regen by local Honda which lasted about two hundred miles before the light came back on. In the end took car to a Independent Honda garage who removed the DPF sent it away to be cleaned and refitted a few days later-cost £600 with a life time guarantee, just pay for labor to remove/refit. So far covered about 10k miles with no issue. You may try these: https://www.dpfcentr.../find-a-dealer/ seem to have good reviews! inclined to agree with F6HAD about chemicals in the fuel!!
May I ask what the guarantee covers?
 
smokingman said:
Had a similar issue, had two forced regen by local Honda which lasted about two hundred miles before the light came back on. In the end took car to a Independent Honda garage who removed the DPF sent it away to be cleaned and refitted a few days later-cost £600 with a life time guarantee, just pay for labor to remove/refit. So far covered about 10k miles with no issue. You may try these: https://www.dpfcentr.../find-a-dealer/ seem to have good reviews! inclined to agree with F6HAD about chemicals in the fuel!!
Maybe they degutted it.
 
Antdad (Tony)- The guarantee covers the cleaning process again, just pay for the removal and refit. It has done about 10k as mentioned and passed one MOT without so much as a hiccup.

Cliffordski (Cliff)- Maybe!!!!!! but i doubt it.
 
As I think I have now said elsewhere, I have now had the DPF removed, sent away and professionally cleaned.... but the local garage's tame expert now says that the DPF SENSOR is faulty, and that the Honda-made replacement sensor will cost over £400, and that nobody else makes them.

I'm not sure about physically removing the DPF as I presume that is highly illegal, but my garage is now suggesting that their expert should reprogram the car's computer so that it "doesn't think that it has a DPF".

But the key question is will this mean that the car would generate fewer (soot?) particles (which is what the garage is claiming), or will the DPF just clog up within a few hundred (or even a few thousand) miles? i.e. If the car's DPF will eventually soot up as before and I am then faced with another c. £500 bill to clean it again, then what?

[ASIDE: It seems to me that Honda should have given us a manual button to regenerate (i.e. burn off) the soot during our longer/motorway journeys. Whoever it was who said that they designed their DPF system well should be in a straight-jacket. ]

J
 
You’re going about this in completely the wrong way and being given some very dangerous advice.

There is no point having a dpf in the car if the system is unable to regenerate it. And without a working sensor it won’t be able to invoke a regen.

The dpf is a trap and it’s designed to trap particulates. It will just become blocked, with continuous driving and heat build up of over 600 degrees there is a serious risk of fire and a very realistic outcome of turbo and engine damage.
 
Yes I am quite worried.


F6HAD said:
without a working sensor it won’t be able to invoke a regen.
One thing, why can't the software just organise to do a regen after XXX miles, irrespective of the condition of the DPF?
 
A regen requires a certain prerequisite set of conditions and the ecu will monitor heat, pressure and other variables including calculated soot content to decide when it’s appropriate to invoke a regen. Remember the point of a dpf is to try and remove particulates from city areas and therefore the software structure is designed to invoke a regen when the car is up to temp, and running on a highway.
 
Yes, from reading the Accord manual it implied that it is a 2-step process.
Step 1. The system decides a regen is needed ASAP
Step 2. The system waits for the correct "highway" (/motorway) conditions

All one would need to do is find a way to tell the system that Step 1 is needed. Is just data or program code that is uploaded when the car's computer is being tweaked?
 
The algorithm that decides when to initiate a regen is a complex set of rules that monitor many parameters to decide when a regen is required and whether the engine is at a suitable condition to perform the operation.

A regen involves increasing the fuelling rate over and above what is normally required which then creates a much greater exhaust temperature (>600 degrees) which then burns off the soot that has been trapped in the DPF.

One of the problems with this is the increased fuelling also causes fuel to be deposited into the oil which causes dilution of the oil, a reduction in viscosity, increased engine wear and an increased level of engine deposits.

in extreme cases excessive DPF regenerations has caused a fuel dilution of over 40% i.e. over 40% of the oil in your engine is actually fuel which causes both a risk of engine failure and possibly combustion when it comes into contact with a very hot turbo!

These are items and processes that should not be messed with !
 
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