Reading soot level with Torque

Diesl

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2012
Location
Chicago
TDI
'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
I'm experiencing odd behaviour after adding the "soot" gauge to Torque.
The gauge seems to work ok (reading 70g), then after < 1min, Torque disconnects from my Bluetooth OBD2 adapter (cheapo aliexpress ELM327 clone) and will not re-connect until I power cycle the OBD2 adapter. If I remove the "soot" gauge all is back to normal, and no more disconnects. Weird.
Any idea what might be causing this?
I think I have a different OBD2 adapter laying around, which I will try and see if it behaves the same way. My phone is a Nexus 4, if that makes any difference.
Any news on the results with the other adapter? 70g soot seems an implausible value: regeneration should start at about 17g. If I remember correctly, 40g is the upper limit beyond which regeneration on the road is disabled, and 45g is the absolute limit, beyond which even a VW shop can't recover the DPF. I'm not saying that 70g can't occur as a reading, after all the car calculates this number, it is not a direct measurement, but it seems out of the normal range.
 

zaphod99

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 27, 2013
Location
Pickering, Ontario
TDI
2013 Passat 6MT, '86 Golf D, '78 Rabbit D
Any news on the results with the other adapter? 70g soot seems an implausible value: regeneration should start at about 17g. If I remember correctly, 40g is the upper limit beyond which regeneration on the road is disabled, and 45g is the absolute limit, beyond which even a VW shop can't recover the DPF. I'm not saying that 70g can't occur as a reading, after all the car calculates this number, it is not a direct measurement, but it seems out of the normal range.
I finally got around to trying my other adapter this morning, and no disconnect issue with this one. However, my readings are erratic and out of the range you described.

At startup, the reading was 63g and fluctuated (up and down) by a few g, and once went wildly up to 166g before coming back down to the 60's. At about 10km into my 50km commute I noticed a regen in progress. At this point the reading was 86g, which held constant during the regen and for most of the remainder of the drive. Near the end of the drive, the reading finally moved off of 86g down to the high 40's to low 50's, with one wild swing to 187g. I'm not sure what to make of these readings.
 
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Diesl

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Dec 3, 2012
Location
Chicago
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'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Happy Thanksgiving! It might be a good idea to double check the formula:
((R49<8)+R50)/100 . A missing or misplaced parenthesis could really screw things up.
R49*2.56 + R50/100 should also work.

Except for the numbers, the behavior you describe sounds similar to what I see:
Constant readout during a regeneration and for a while (50 miles for me) afterwards, then a jump to a lower number (usually 6 to 8 gram for me - haven't checked it that often) and slow increase from there.

The erratic jumps also point in the direction of a wrong math formula, or that your car's computer has gone bonkers. Maybe VW tried a special improved cheating firmware in yours... :D
 

zaphod99

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 27, 2013
Location
Pickering, Ontario
TDI
2013 Passat 6MT, '86 Golf D, '78 Rabbit D
Happy Thanksgiving! It might be a good idea to double check the formula:
((R49<8)+R50)/100 . A missing or misplaced parenthesis could really screw things up.
R49*2.56 + R50/100 should also work.
Except for the numbers, the behavior you describe sounds similar to what I see:
Constant readout during a regeneration and for a while (50 miles for me) afterwards, then a jump to a lower number (usually 6 to 8 gram for me - haven't checked it that often) and slow increase from there.
The erratic jumps also point in the direction of a wrong math formula, or that your car's computer has gone bonkers. Maybe VW tried a special improved cheating firmware in yours... :D
I verified that I had the correct formula. I also tried the alternate formula "R49*2.56 + R50/100" and the result is the same.
Back in post #25 @bud_128 reported readings as high as 200g, so I'm not alone. Maybe both our ECUs have gone bonkers :D
 

Diesl

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Dec 3, 2012
Location
Chicago
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'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Mhmm. Maybe that means my formula only works for certain TDIs. Yours is a 2013 Passat, and bud_128 drives a 2014 something. Maybe also a Passat? A 2014 Jetta or Golf should have exactly the same engine as my 2012 wagon (which is really more a Golf than a Jetta, despite what the nameplate says). Bummer.

If you wanted, you could check what Torque lists by itself for Mode 6 ('Test Results') data. Maybe in your car the soot is a few bytes over?
 
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zaphod99

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 27, 2013
Location
Pickering, Ontario
TDI
2013 Passat 6MT, '86 Golf D, '78 Rabbit D
If you wanted, you could check what Torque lists by itself for Mode 6 ('Test Results') data. Maybe in your car the soot is a few bytes over?
Absolutely right. I watched PID 06b2 in "test" mode, and although the sequence '7E82736' was not there, it was evident that the 2 bytes of interest were the last byte on line "5:" and the first byte on line "6:". I adjusted my formula to '((R40<8)+R41)/100' and now I'm seeing reasonable values in the 7-18g range. FYI my pre-regen reading topped out at x'0706'.
 
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Diesl

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2012
Location
Chicago
TDI
'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Update: I had the opportunity to test my torque setup on a 2015 golf wagon TDI, and everything seems to work, incl. EGTs, manifold pressure (requested and actual ), fuel pressure, DPF soot load etc.. In fact, the soot load was 24 gram, as the car had only ever been driven very short distances, and I saw it start a regeneration.
 

krambriw

New member
Joined
Aug 11, 2017
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
TDI
2013 Audi A6 2.0 tdi, 2010 Audi A3 1.6 tdi, 2008 VW Golf 4motion 2.0 tdi
dpf's and more

Hello, just found this great place!
In our family we have 3 tdi's. One of them, the old Golf needed the dpf to be cleaned. I went to a garage where they had a pretty new equipment for this purpose. It took around 3 hours and I was astonished afterwards; the engine was running much smoother, more quiet, no more diesel smell that I could feel earlier, really big difference. The thing was this car had 260.000 km's, mostly on highways, so there was a lot of ash in the dpf. Luckily, we did not have to replace it, the cleaning was enough.

Anyway, this raised my awareness a bit, I decided to look for some tool that could be used to read the soot level. Ended up with an ELM327 and Torque. Besides that I have also tried with VAG DPF.

The communication with the ecu is working fine with all 3 cars but the reading in Torque makes me uncertain. Our A6 shows a soot level around 13-14 when using VAG DPF. Using Torque with the formulas mentioned in this thread gives readings 50 to 70. So I assume the formula is not perfect for the A6 2.0 tdi from 2013.

Is there anybody who could explain what the response in the picture really means? Is the soot level in there somewhere?

Kind regards, Walter

 
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Diesl

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Dec 3, 2012
Location
Chicago
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'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Hi Walter, would you mind resizing your giant picture so one can still read the text on this page?

The response in the screen shot seems short. If you look at my first post in https://torque-bhp.com/forums/?wpforumaction=viewtopic&t=7739.0 (the torque forum companion thread), the response I'm getting has quite a few more bytes.

Did you post the complete response to the 'test command', or did it get chopped off?
What are you seeing under 'test results in torque for B2C5?
 

krambriw

New member
Joined
Aug 11, 2017
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
TDI
2013 Audi A6 2.0 tdi, 2010 Audi A3 1.6 tdi, 2008 VW Golf 4motion 2.0 tdi
Hi,
Yes, that is the complete response, the same length from both Audi's. Also there is no data received for command B2C5, same for both cars
If the elm327 adapter seems to be working ok, aslo included a screenshot from VAG DPF below (from the A3)
Best regards, Walter

B2C5 from both


From Audi A6


From Audi A3


VAG DPF from Audi A3
 
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Diesl

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2012
Location
Chicago
TDI
'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Torque also has a selection in the main menu for 'test results'. It takes a while to fully populate, but that is where I initially found the B2C5 field with a value in gram. What do your cars show there?
 

krambriw

New member
Joined
Aug 11, 2017
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
TDI
2013 Audi A6 2.0 tdi, 2010 Audi A3 1.6 tdi, 2008 VW Golf 4motion 2.0 tdi
I did a test with the A6, waited like ten minutes, this was all that was shown, maybe it doesn't work with my cars ecu's

Kind regards, Walter

 

Diesl

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Dec 3, 2012
Location
Chicago
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'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
That's odd. 3 variables is all the A6 provides as mode 6 data?
Is there an A6 subforum here? Maybe they know more. It could be your elm-clone that is acting funny. Does everything else work (built-in torque functions)?
 

krambriw

New member
Joined
Aug 11, 2017
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
TDI
2013 Audi A6 2.0 tdi, 2010 Audi A3 1.6 tdi, 2008 VW Golf 4motion 2.0 tdi
The elm seems to be working ok, a raw display is populating a lot of values, but it might be that something int the elm compatibility is missing anyway (it's reported as ver 1.5). Same result for both the A3 and the A6. It can read fault codes. It's the "test result" that won't play

Anyway, I think I will be satisfied with the VAG DPF since that is working, it was my main interest to be able to check the dpf

Thanks for all suggestions,
Best regards, Walter
 

Diesl

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2012
Location
Chicago
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'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Soot reading bytes moved after emissions fix

Absolutely right. I watched PID 06b2 in "test" mode, and although the sequence '7E82736' was not there, it was evident that the 2 bytes of interest were the last byte on line "5:" and the first byte on line "6:". I adjusted my formula to '((R40<8)+R41)/100' and now I'm seeing reasonable values in the 7-18g range. FYI my pre-regen reading topped out at x'0706'.
Update 2018-2-15: after getting the emissions fix for my 2012 JSW TDI, the R49/R50 formula showed the same behavior that Mr.Beeblebrox above saw for his Passat, so I tried out his R40/R41 shift, and it works.
 
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Nevada_TDI

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 17, 2008
Location
Reno, sort of...
TDI
2001 Jetta TDI
Just a thought... ELM v2.0 would not work on my 2001 TDI, but a v1.5 works fine. Maybe you could try a v2.0 if you can get one? I am just guessing here.
 

sportwagen3

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2017
Location
MD
TDI
2015 Golf Sportwagen TDI SE
Update: I had the opportunity to test my torque setup on a 2015 golf wagon TDI, and everything seems to work, incl. EGTs, manifold pressure (requested and actual ), fuel pressure, DPF soot load etc.. In fact, the soot load was 24 gram, as the car had only ever been driven very short distances, and I saw it start a regeneration.
Tried both formulas on my 15 GSW TDI SE. I get values that never fluctuate of 135.7 and 102.8. Any ideas how to fix this?
 

Diesl

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Joined
Dec 3, 2012
Location
Chicago
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'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Hi, sportwagen3, if you test one of the formulas, you get to see the whole block; maybe it will become obvious where the correct bytes are located. As I posted earlier, the old formula worked on a 2015 GSW that I test drove.


Edit: I was still looking at the R49/R50 bytes at that time, which is not correct anymore (not the B2C5 field) after the fix. What torque read showed a similar pattern (stuck at max. value when going into regeneration) as the correct field, but the readings are wrong. I'm not sure what they are for, since both SportWagen3's record and my car's 06B2 record after the fix are shorter than 49 bytes; I don't know what torque is reading in that case.
 
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Diesl

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Dec 3, 2012
Location
Chicago
TDI
'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Update: after the emissions modification, my car seems to regenerate after about 320 instead of 170 miles, at about 23.x gram instead of 16.x gram. It also reaches 500C on temperature sensors B1S1 (cat) and EGT3 (between cat and DPF?) for short stretches (~30s) when running at 80 mph between regenerations.
 

Diesl

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Dec 3, 2012
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Chicago
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'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Does the '0467' increase (right after 'B2C412')? I think it's best to call up the test screen (the one you posted) once in a while after the car is warmed up and see which bytes increase more or less steadily.
Given that the soot value in normal operation should max out below about 30, you are looking for the high byte starting with a '0' and the second nibble between '0' and 'A' (roughly), and the next byte taking on all values from '00' to 'FF'.

Whereas before the emissions fix I was seeing on average 1 gram per ten miles increase in bytes R49 and R50, I'm now seeing about two thirds of that (in bytes R40 and R41), and on the highway a much lower rate of maybe 0.1 gram per ten miles.
 

sportwagen3

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Jul 7, 2017
Location
MD
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2015 Golf Sportwagen TDI SE
Nope that 0467 hasn't changed even though I've driven at least 60 miles. I've been logging the numbers at the end of each trip so I'll see what fluctuates. So far the only fluctuations have been other numbers that are way out of range. Also, the R13 and R14 values turned to 0000 after being 04FF.
 

Diesl

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Chicago
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'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Looking at the raw dumps (using the 'test button in the 'edit' section of the torque special PIDs menu), for my car the fields shifted, and the B2C5 number moved from R49/50 to R40/41 after the emissions modification for my 2012 TDI. So I'm still looking a the same number, just in a different location. From that I would conclude that the '04FF' is the right location in your imgur image.
How many miles on your 2015 wagon since the fix?
 

sportwagen3

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MD
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2015 Golf Sportwagen TDI SE
Over 15k miles since I bought it CPO. It's weird how my setup is different than yours even though it's the same car.
 

Diesl

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'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Well, the 2015 is the first year (in the US) on the MQB basis, so the engine is completely new.

It's nice that VW is at least keeping the names of the fields in the OBD record the same. It would be best if Torque could find the fields by name instead of by offset. For example, in this case: look for 'B2C5' in the response, report bytes 2 and 3 after it. Maybe I'll post a suggestion in the torque forum.

Regarding your car: assuming you just came out of a regeneration, the pattern is correct (first a constant value, then reset to a lower value), but the numbers are odd (04FF = 12.79 gram as maximum value, 0 gram afterwards). It would help if other 2015 owners could report what they see.
 

Lightflyer1

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Joined
Sep 13, 2005
Location
Round Rock, Texas
TDI
2015 Beetle tdi dsg
I have a 2015 Beetle and using vag dpf right now. It regens at 24 grams soot. I have torque as well if you want any other readings from it. Just send me the formula to use.
 

sportwagen3

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MD
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2015 Golf Sportwagen TDI SE
I have a 2015 Beetle and using vag dpf right now. It regens at 24 grams soot. I have torque as well if you want any other readings from it. Just send me the formula to use.
Yea I used VAG DPF, but I've been trying to get the same data in Torque since I'm able to get Torque to work with Android Auto.

((R13<8)+R14)/100 or ((R13<8)+R14)/100 for PID 06b2. Can you take a screen shot of when you test the PID. That way we can compare data.
 

Lightflyer1

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Sep 13, 2005
Location
Round Rock, Texas
TDI
2015 Beetle tdi dsg
I used Torque with my other cars but the Beetle came with temp and boost gauges built in. So only really need to monitor soot now. The RNS315 I am installing doesn't do android.
 
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Diesl

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Chicago
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'78 Golf Diesel (long gone); 2012 Jetta Sportwagen TDI w/ DSG
Supposedly INT16(R13:R14)/100 also works in the latest version.
 

sportwagen3

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2015 Golf Sportwagen TDI SE
I'm not sure if the soot level is correct based on the formula. I noticed VAG DPF gave me a different reading before and after regen in comparison to this. I've been using the values after the B2C5.
 
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