Driving a VW Transporter for short distances - how often before it kills the DPF?

[Andr3w]

Evening Motors,

We're looking at getting rid of our car (Petrol estate) and getting a VW Transporter (or similar) SWB van, either already convertered or a blank canvas and getting a conversion done. This will be for weekend adventures with our little one, something we've always wanted to do.

I live approx 2~miles from work. During the warmer summer months I cycle to work. However there are occastions i'd need to drive, especially in autumn/winter where it's amost every day (I need to transport equipment/work uniform etc). Obviously this is only a short 7~minute trip.

How badly would this destroy the van?

I've never owned a diesel so i'm not sure how it works with the DPF. All I know is they need to heat up and 'burn off' any crap - but how often?

On a weekend we use our vehicle to go places, usually around 20-30 minutes each way, unless we were going away in the camper then obviously it'll be further.

Does a 30~minute drive on a weekend burn off any crap from the short journeys during the week, or doesn't it work like that?

We theoretically could keep our Estate, or get a smaller 'run around' like a Polo or Fiesta - but it seems silly to run both a Van and a Car in our situation.

Thanks!

 

[MrKnifey]

It will be fine, you might find it does soft regens a bit more, but you shouldn't notice.

I drive one similar miles per day and it's what we predominantly work on in my business

 

[Andr3w]

It will be fine, you might find it does soft regens a bit more, but you shouldn't notice.

I drive one similar miles per day and it's what we predominantly work on in my business

I've done some readings on other forums and some quick googling. Everything is doom and gloom and i'm going to kill the Van costing £1000's, hence my confusion! Could you explain soft regens? Is this where the car purposfully heats itself up when it starts to notice the DPF getting full? Do all of them have this feature now is it it only on certain year vans?

I'm not sure if it matters, but we're looking at T6/T6.1 (probably T6 due to price) with around 40k miles. Although if I sell my car, it'll probably be a newer T6.1.

 

[radderfire]

It will be fine. You're more likely to flatten the battery with lots of short runs.

 

[moon man]

my 1.6 tdi wouldn't like this scenario the temps and operating conditions and length of those journeys would never let it complete an active regen, lots of times i have returned from Polzeath, parked up and the damn thing is in the middle of a regen, vie interrupted a few but don't like to.
i think the weekend trips would do the job possibly with the help of vag dpf app (edit assuming the engine is compatible) and a cheap Bluetooth connector, the guy explains how it helps him by knowing when a regen is imminent he can carry on the journey
edit he also says he has removed dpf now

 

[Gabby]

Take it out onto a Dual Carriageway/Motorway once a month and give it an "Italian Service". Sorted.

 

[Andr3w]

Take it out onto a Dual Carriageway/Motorway once a month and give it an "Italian Service". Sorted.

We would do those trips once a month anyway, without needing to factor it in.

Does this ACTUALLY work and undo any spot build up from the daily short trips, or is it just a ‘try this’ scenario?

 

[Gabby]

We would do those trips once a month anyway, without needing to factor it in.

Does this ACTUALLY work and undo any spot build up from the daily short trips, or is it just a ‘try this’ scenario?

My wife used to do about 7 miles/day with our SAAB 93 TDI and the DPF would build up quite regularly (I used an OBD2 tester to check the % and it could get up to about 90+%). Giving it a long run at speed allowed it to heat up and regen to about 70% usually. We also used the OBD2 device to force a regen before a trip if it was a high %.

 

[Grim5]

Just the remove the DPF lmao

 

[Grim5]

Take it out onto a Dual Carriageway/Motorway once a month and give it an "Italian Service". Sorted.

I love doing this, works great on carbon

 

[Rroff]

To be honest it is pretty hit and miss but if mostly only doing short distances it probably won't produce problems within your ownership but the next owner will probably hate you.

Generally even 1 decent run a month will offset most of it.

In my experience EGR getting clogged up happens much more frequently with that kind of use than DPF.

 

[sx_turbo]

Running diesels for short journeys on a regular basis does cause issues, the oil soots up a lot faster, it also dilutes from unburnt fuel, the intakes clog etc, however shortening the service intervals helps greatly, and as has been mentioned an Italian service once a month helps.

Petrols are the same but as they burn cleaner it doesn't affect them as much.

 

[Semple]

We would do those trips once a month anyway, without needing to factor it in.

Does this ACTUALLY work and undo any spot build up from the daily short trips, or is it just a ‘try this’ scenario?

It doesn't really "undo" as soot will always build up. I think an issue you may face is that if it's not able to do a successful regen due to the short journey, and next journey is also too short to do a regen then it keeps postponing it. Earlier on in the DPFs life this isn't going to make a difference, but later on in its life it'll start throwing up warnings.

Ideally you'd get something like VagDPF and monitor when regens occur. If you're driving home on your short journey and a regen is soon to occur then it'd be worth taking it for a punt down a 60/70mph road.

 

[moon man]

I think I have inherited problems from previous owners, I did a 5.5 HR journey to Yorkshire but then just tootled around while there and got the dpf warning light, I use BP diesel but I think I drive too gently coming from an old SDI non turbo.
I also got a potential egr fault code on my last trip so not looking good

 

[moon man]

I also find it ironic that my car has all this emissions stuff on but the same tax bracket as my old SDI, even if I deleted the egr and dpf it would probably still have lower emissions

 

[Semple]

I think I have inherited problems from previous owners, I did a 5.5 HR journey to Yorkshire but then just tootled around while there and got the dpf warning light, I use BP diesel but I think I drive too gently coming from an old SDI non turbo.
I also got a potential egr fault code on my last trip so not looking good

When I had an Audi diesel, even though I used to do about 25-30k a year, it was the EGR that got me rather than the DPF. I imagine the DPF was actually pretty clean considering the type of driving.

 

[moon man]

When I had an Audi diesel, even though I used to do about 25-30k a year, it was the EGR that got me rather than the DPF. I imagine the DPF was actually pretty clean considering the type of driving.

I have ordered a egr vacuum solenoid, its a long shot but a £22 long shot my code is" egr a control circuit open"
Having phoned around i have also been offered an egr delete and blank off with a stage 1 thrown in for reasonable money,, i wont open up the ethical and legal side of this !!!!
As regards the vw transporter i am not sure how good or bad they are on egr, dpf ,i know loads of people who run deisels with no trouble including my ex who has a 1.2 tdi, guessing this gets more of a work out though being a smaller higher revving engine.

 

[Andr3w]

Can you see why I’m struggling to decide what to do? Even in this thread it’s been 50/50 lol!

Regarding a ‘regen’ is this something triggered manually or automatically? How exactly does that work?

 

[JonRGV250]

Both, you can “force” a regen.

 

[moon man]

My understanding is the ECU calculates when to do a regen with your driving, engine data history but also monitors input and output pressure in the dpf so can detect when it's getting full of soot (it can't burn ash)
On a long run passive regens occur just due to the higher temperature reached.
I have used a Wynn's dpf additive and that lowers the temperature needed, actually worked well to reduce my regens