Warning for diesel owners - I'll never have another

Maninblack4612

Maninblack4612

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Once upon a time a diesel vehicle was uber reliable & you could drive 200,000 miles without touching the engine. Then someone thought "it's not very fast, let's put in a turbo". Then it produced too much torque so the dual mass flywheel had to be invented. Then the EEC decided they produced too much soot so a Diesel Particulate Filter had to be fitted. I've had three turbo diesel Zafiras & the only problems I had had with any of them until last week was with the turbos & DMF. Last week it was the DPF, which became completely blocked, apparently as a result of lots of short journeys not allowing the engine to warm up. My repair man costed a replacement at £800 from Vauxhall. I managed to get one from Cats4us.co.uk for under £200 and it's now being fitted.

Now modern diesels are as fast as petrol cars. Trouble is they have become about as reliable and the fuel consumption is not that much better either. It's petrol for me next time.

Be warned, if you use a diesel only for short journeys it needs at least 10 minutes at 2,500 reves every couple of weeks to burn off the gunge in the filter. I didn't know this, I do now!
 
It's for this reason that my car is a fiat panda 100hp petrol for in town and my wife's is a turbo diesel bmw that we use for further afield trips.
 
To be fair, the DPF should have been explained to you when you bought the car. I know a few who've fallen foul of that little problem. Try it on a new BMW X5. It makes £800 look like pocket money.

As regards the rest, maybe the issue is with Vauxhall? I've put the best end of 300k miles on a Nissan and Honda Diesel engine over the last 5 years without any issue whatsoever.
 
I recently bought an Insignia estate diesel and heard everything you've just said as potential issues..... luckily my wife does a 26 mile journey each way 5 days per week so no clogging issues.
 
bluewolf said:
To be fair, the DPF should have been explained to you when you bought the car. I know a few who've fallen foul of that little problem. Try it on a new BMW X5. It makes £800 look like pocket money.

As regards the rest, maybe the issue is with Vauxhall? I've put the best end of 300k miles on a Nissan and Honda Diesel engine over the last 5 years without any issue whatsoever.
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Expensive lesson. I bought the car used & nobody explained that to me. The DMF failed within a couple of weeks & was replaced under the warranty. The rest were relatively minor problems, but always turbo related. Just don't think they're such a great idea unless you do a very high mileage.
 
Maninblack4612 said:
Expensive lesson. I bought the car used & nobody explained that to me. The DMF failed within a couple of weeks & was replaced under the warranty. The rest were relatively minor problems, but always turbo related. Just don't think they're such a great idea unless you do a very high mileage.
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I would agree with that last statement. My annual mileage is about to drop through the floor, so the 2.0 litre diesel will be replaced my a smaller petrol car.
 
To be fair the whole issue of DPF and short journeys have been very well publicised and there is a lot of info out there regarding them. The information and advice is there, it is up to you as the buyer to look into it.

Edit - Just seen your latest post. Your comment about high mileage is correct. They are completely wrong for short journeys now. The difference between suitability for petrol and diesel has never been more marked.
 
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bluewolf said:
As regards the rest, maybe the issue is with Vauxhall? I've put the best end of 300k miles on a Nissan and Honda Diesel engine over the last 5 years without any issue whatsoever.
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This. My Toyota Yaris has 191,000 on the clock, and is still going very strong. Japanese seem to do great diesel engines.
 
Had vaxhall and it died. Had ford focus and dual mass flywheel failed and cost a fortune followed by clutch slave cylinder a week later (common apprently so why didn't dealer tell me and replace while in bits - a cheaper looking nasty plastic part I have never seen!).

Now had 3 x skoda (read VW) and, touch wood, bullet proof with over 195,000 miles on the last one.

Conclusion - buy german / japenese for happy motoring.
 
Don't overreact to a few exceptions, most diesel cars have routines in their software to 'clean' the DPF that work well.
 
DMF is also a bit of a con IMO, one went in my JTD Alfa GT so I just got a standard flywheel with a conversion kit for about a third of the cost and there was no noticible difference to the engine balance during gear changes or when putting power down.
Guy I did apprenticeship with works for for Mercedes now and agrees that they actually do very little after a few months of use anyway.

DPF can be cycled by using a machine like Tech2 or Opcom.

I think its a bit of a generlisation overall though, last 3 cars have been reasonable mid range power diesels (165, 155 and 170bhp) BMW did 90k with not a single issue, Alfa did 107k and still on original DPF (ok the EGR is another matter but thats a Fiat block issue and would be the same engine in a pre 2012 1.9 CDTi Vauxhall - Z19DTH or Y19DTL variant).
My current A Class has a DPF cycle built in to the system software. Every 15k I think. Not hit that yet though.
 
My Vauxhall dealer explained the problem and cure when I bought my Astra. I find that forum meets all requiring a long drive cures the problem
 
Between re generating DPF's & faulty EGR Exhaust Gas Recirculation valves all this new technology will make it hard to buy a decent second hand diesel VW Audi Skoda car in a few year unless a cheaper supplier (spurious ) can be found

Yes DPF can be bypassed & ECU mapped to think they are reading them on most models now
 
When somebody comes into the showroom or onto the forecourt asking for a Diesel car, I'll always ask how many miles they are doing a year.
If they are doing only a very low mileage, certainly under 10k I'll always mention the benefits of driving a petrol car to them.
A Diesel car is normally more expensive than the equivalent petrol one (in the Qashqai range, as much as £1750.00 in some instances) and unless they are doing a high mileage they will never make up the deficit in fuel savings.
Some people like the low down torque that a Diesel car gives them, so the above information won't sway them one way or the other.
 
My previous Mazda 6 was a nightmare for the DPF filter warning despite doing maybe 1,000 miles a week, it seemed to pop up on a monthly basis. I also somehow managed to blow the turbo on that car as well :whoo:My current Insignia is much better, maybe not as refined as the Mazda but I can't say I've had many problems in 2 or 3 years, it does get services regularly mind.
I have a smallish van on order which should arrive soon, not as comfy as a car but I need the extra space (for clubs obviously ;)).
 
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