DPF Filter "do I really need it"

[markscotford]

I love my 2013 Berlingo 1.6Hdi  the 68Kw engine model DV6DTED is a lovely engine, its a shame the new ones are reportedly shyte, limits my options when I upgrade (mine has now done over 200000Km. My only bug bear now is the DPF, I have now done two "Out Of Car" soaked overnight in Wynn's solution, DPF cleans over the last year, and bugger me the other day I got the dreaded "Potential Of DPF Clogging" warning indicator came on. I did not stop just slowed down and it went away by itself. A friend of mine is convinced that you don't really need the filter for the car to function, and its just a case of removing it altogether, (he swears blind the MOT people in Spain do not check for it) have some changes made to the EMS configuration, by someone who is a proper expert, and I will never have the problem again. What is peoples opinion?

[DavidM]

Functionally you don’t need it.

But legally you do.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...plications

[markscotford]

Functionally you don’t need it.

But legally you do.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...plications

[markscotford]

That's for the UK of course, what about Spain? Anybody from here done this, and had problems?

[markscotford]

Sorry should have said I do not drive into the UK, and have no intention of going into the UK. The French visit was a two day out of the norm, for me.

[boop]

There are no methods of checking the existence of the filter externally as the car would pass the required emission norms anyway.

Now if your car checks it by measuring the backpressure or something, I don't know.

[Multispacer]

Sorry should have said I do not drive into the UK, and have no intention of going into the UK. The French visit was a two day out of the norm, for me.

Probably best to ask around at garages in Spain, as looking on the page counter stats there have only been 93 'unique' page views on the forum from Spain [I would suspect it measures unique views from the IP address] so only 93 different users ever on the forum from Spain.

With regard to your 2013 Berlingo, does it have an EOLYS system? The system was fitted to the Berlingo [and other PSA group diesels] around that time, if so your EOLYS system might need replenishing [which is not an easy task and a system rest is needed after replenishing to tell the system it has been refilled]  Search the forum for details.

I previously had a neighbour who had a commercial business that went around 'reconditioning' DPFs for [mainly] large commercial operators like bus companies, hauliers etc. He often commented about how rubbish a lot of car DPFs systems were. He did some private jobs as well out of his garage and his method of reconditioning car DPFs involved a long 'heat soak' to regenerate the DPF.

[DavidM]

That's for the UK of course, what about Spain? Anybody from here done this, and had problems?

AFAIK since it’s related to a EU vehicle emissions directive (Euro 5) the DPF became mandatory in the EU & the UK at the same time, Sep 2009.

AFAIK there is currently (in the UK at least) no specific check that a vehicles emission control system is as originally fitted at the time of manufacture.

So if you had some aspect of it removed/bypassed/disabled then it isn’t likely to be detected.

However doing so makes the vehicle illegal to drive (in the UK).

It’s not hard to imagine a future in which a vehicles emissions system is more closely scrutinised during the MoT (or other test) in order to detect such modifications.

I don’t imagine that the situation is very much different anywhere else.
So probably illegal but (currently) unlikely to be detected.