2010 Jetta - DPF Excessive Soot Acumulation

Hello all.

I'm posting this in order to hopefully get some useful input, and at the same time to help potentially save others from having to deal with this BS that I'm dealing with currently..... LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES!

History:
I am the original owner of this car, and it's been great to me, until about 3 months ago or so when I got a CEL and a Flashing Coil indicator. Upon investigating, I found out that my "before turbo" EGT sensor was dead. Because I was out of warranty, and because Canadian dealers are a ripoff (they wanted $355 + tax for a sensor, plus install), it took me quite a while to source one from the US at a reasonable price.

Now that I've finally replaced the sensor (major PIA), I've been "rewarded" with a DPF Light on top of my original two warning lights.

VCDS shows the following two codes (sorry for crap phone pics.... I didn't take screen shots as I was "borrowing" the ancient laptop and VCDS from a good friend)

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/17/3glj.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/41/f381.jpg/

I've attempted to do both a Service Regen and an Emergency Regen but have been unable to. I'm suspecting that this is due to the 50.1g of Calculated Soot which exceeds the max 45g allowed.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/rfns.jpg/

My question to you guys is, does anyone know if there's a re-calibration procedure or RESET for this "calculated value"? I refuse to accept that my DPF is clogged beyond regen when the car is running flawlessly.... it "pulls hard", it gets better MPG than before Regen stopped working, and it regularly gets into the 150kph+ speeds.

And lastly.... learn from my experience.... deal with dead sensors ASAP so that you don't end up with my headaches

How long did you drive it with the sensor broken? I wonder if there isn't some way to remove it and blast hot air (1200 F) through it manually to burn it out some and then replace it and try.

Lightflyer1 said:

How long did you drive it with the sensor broken? I wonder if there isn't some way to remove it and blast hot air (1200 F) through it manually to burn it out and then replace it.

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Where do you get hot air at 1200F?

A propane torch is hotter than that. Add some extra air or let it cool some and then duct it into the dpf. Some electric heating guns maybe. You would have to be creative here. Maybe a big fire with some hardwood and then throw it into the coals for awhile. BBQ when done. Then try a regen back in the car.

So you have roughly 78K miles on your car? How long (time/miles) did you drive while you had the engine faults? Emergency Regen didn't work?

Lightflyer1 said:

How long did you drive it with the sensor broken? I wonder if there isn't some way to remove it and blast hot air (1200 F) through it manually to burn it out some and then replace it and try.

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~ 3 months and 10k kms

I'm quite certain that I can "clean it" manually by some means, but that still wouldn't solve my regen issue since the computer still has that calculated soot value too high.

There must be an adaptation or way to reset things when the dealer or someone replaces a clogged DPF for example!

MacBuckeye said:

So you have roughly 78K miles on your car? How long (time/miles) did you drive while you had the engine faults? Emergency Regen didn't work?

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Everything I've read indicates that emergency regen can only be performed up to 45g of calculated soot.... I've over that so I can't initiate anything

Maybe the calculated is arrived at by the pressure sensors on the car. If you can get rid of some of the soot manually maybe it will recalculate a new lower value. Then regen. Some of the dpf cleaners use a baking step in their process IIRC.

Lightflyer1 said:

Maybe the calculated is arrived at by the pressure sensors on the car. If you can get rid of some of the soot manually maybe it will recalculate a new lower value. Then regen. Some of the dpf cleaners use a baking step in their process IIRC.

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That is exactly how the ECU derives that calculation.... I intend to drive the piss out of the car over the weekend in order to raise EGTs to the point where it will hopefully burn off some of the soot so that the level will drop below a level that will allow a forced regen through the VCDS.

Can you drive up hill both ways?

Lightflyer1 said:

Can you drive up hill both ways?

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I can try

Know of any steep, long hills that you can direct me to?

Even just a long high speed drive should clear some of it up. It might help to be in 4th or 5th. Passive regens occur at highway speeds without any input from the car.

Maybe even throw some weight, such as bricks, stones, bags of sand, gold bars, large boned friends/relatives, a couple of St Bernards in the car/trunk too...this extra weight when combined with highway speeds should raise the EGTs enough to give you a good passive regen, which would then allow an active regen.

I do not know of anyway to reset the calculated soot load, I think this would be a figure the car would actively calculate based on the readings of pressure sensors and then store the figures, so if a passive regen occurred then the calculated soot load should go down.

ibexlatham said:

I do not know of anyway to reset the calculated soot load, I think this would be a figure the car would actively calculate based on the readings of pressure sensors and then store the figures, so if a passive regen occurred then the calculated soot load should go down.

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You are correct. According to my latest research and input from others, this value is calculated based on MAF values, EGT values, and the before and after DPF pressure readings.

I have been beating the car up in the first 4 gears (driving at 2.5k+ rpm) quite a bit over the last couple of days, but my value is still at 50.1 which leads me to believe that this is the MAX value that it will calculate...... I can see the actual value fluctuate as I drive, so I will try a really long passive regen with the hopes that it will drop the calculated value low enough to allow an active regen or even an emergency regen started by me!

It's much easier burning up a tank of diesel than ripping the DPF out for a manual cleaning or replacement.

Looks like you need to hit the 401 north for a couple hundred miles and back. If that won't do it, it may have to come out.

That's the basically the plan at this point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWVW_Q4wyWU


I just found this on Youtube. Anyone have experiences this way?

I'm not sure I would feel comfortable taking a pressure washer to one of the TDI ones as I'm left with the impression that the internal membranes are somewhat delicate.

if you want some load, ideas I have include strapping a large box to the roof. or perhaps giving the parking brake a click or two.

keep an eye on it so it does not overheat the brakes. I would stop after a few and point my IR thermometer at the rear disks.

Thanks for the heads up and advice. hope a hard drive does what you want it to do.

Contact the folks at www.dpfregeneration.com - they came to TDIFest this year and are experts on the subject. They're very nice and I'm sure they can provide some guidance on what to do next.

Update.... I've beaten the crap out of the car for a few hundred miles......
The bottom line is, I can't load it enough on public roads even when seriously breaking speed limits to really drive the EGTs up that high.....

This was being done in 5th gear, so you can judge the velocity by the RPM
http://imageshack.us/a/img407/174/s779.png

As you can see, although I can get the pre-turbo EGTs up, the DPF is still "cold". I need to heat up the DPF to about 650deg C from what I've read in order to get the soot to burn off...... it will never happen passively on the roads.

I'm currently in the process of trying to get some dyno time to try to load the car up on the dyno under more safe/controlled conditions so that I can monitor things without doubling speed limits on public roadways and to try to drive the temps up.

Another failed attempt at loading it enough to get the DPF temps up high enough.... I need sustained 550-650deg C in the DPF if I hope to burn some of that soot away
http://imageshack.us/a/img833/4720/lqrg.png

Just send the DPF off to be cleaned. I think your attempts at getting it hot enough are only going to be futile and end up adding more ash load to the DPF.

Pull it, backflush with soapy water. Drain, dry, refit, test.

DPM said:

Pull it, backflush with soapy water. Drain, dry, refit, test.

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Looks like it's coming down to that..... however, I have a 60 mile daily work commute so I kinda depend on the car.... this doesn't really leave me a lot of time for this kind of a "job".

I'll keep you guys posted.

Well, you could continue to not do it and end up worse of than where you are now. Everybody likes options!

and don't panic too much on drying it, if you do wash. There's plenty condensate pushed through it on a cold start without harm...

UPDATE
I was able to ZERO out all values under adaptation.
Stored ASH, Calculated Soot and Measured Soot all reset at the same time. My intention wasn't to reset the ASH value, but I can live with it.
Cleared all codes.
After the above reset, I was able to regen. Knowing that the soot values were exceeding the maximum allowable safe values, I took the car for a 100km trip in 4th gear, set the cruise to ~ 120kph and monitored EGT sensors and DPF temps.
I had about 20-25min worth of regen, with some funky smells at times, with DPF temps constant ~640-650deg C....... DPF light was on for 15min I would guess.
I have driven another 100kms or so since, including a handful off re-starts, hwy and stop-and-go traffic. All seems well. Will monitor for the next few days to see what happens.
Calculated soot is slowly starting to build up again.... I'm currently under 2g.

That's awesome! Well done.

TurboABA said:

UPDATE
I was able to ZERO out all values under adaptation.
Stored ASH, Calculated Soot and Measured Soot all reset at the same time.

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Can you tell me how did you do it?

pawel said:

Can you tell me how did you do it?

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It's under adaptation and one of the channels.... can't recall exactly right now.... I'll have to dig into my records.....

Why do you want to know? There's a good chance that you can start your car on fire and/or damage components by doing what I did and "tricking" the system to regen under conditions that aren't safe.......

I don't want to get blamed for people burning down their cars