Diesel Particulate Filter fault, who is responsible?

scenaria

I leased a Mini Diesel from Lex Autolease for 7000 miles per year. Diesel Particulate Filter fault keeps coming up. Mini Cardiff repaired the fault three times within the last 8 months. Now Mini is saying the leasing company should never sold this car for 7000 miles per year as the DPF needs longer run to regenerate & they can refuse to repair this under warranty. My position is whether it was a mis-selling or poor design/manufacturing fault I can not be responsible for this. I am awaiting response from the leasing company. Can BVRLA sort this out or do I need to take them to court?

deanos

under 7k isn't a problem, its the type of driving , many short runs or driving in heavy stop start traffic eg in a city is bad for a dpf as it needs longer higher speed runs to generate and clean

what type of driving do you do ?

what does the handbook say about the dpf ?

scenaria

I drive about 10 miles to & from work, five days a week. Every couple of months go to London. On the user manual it says DPF collects soot particulates & burns them periodically at high temperatures, while doing this engine can be slight rough, noisy etc. Nothing mentioned about long drives or anything else.
Thanks

worried_jim

Sounds like you have bought the wrong car for the job and should definitely be driving a petrol, what research did you do before leasing this car? There is a wealth of information which would have pretty much advised you to go petrol only-

http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/petrol-diesel-calculator/1198033

I don't know where you will stand with Lex- they could argue that the lease is only for 7k a year and as far as they were aware you were doing a 100 mile journey on the motorway once a week. They are interested in making as much money as possible out of you and as a diesel car would be more to lease than a petrol they have done their job.- it's a bit cheeky as the general rule of thumb is less than 12k miles a years petrol, greater diesel.

Good luck getting this sorted but you may just need to go for a good 50 mile drive on an M-way once a week to clear the filter if you end up stuck with the car.

motorguy

scenaria wrote: »

I drive about 10 miles to & from work, five days a week. Every couple of months go to London. On the user manual it says DPF collects soot particulates & burns them periodically at high temperatures, while doing this engine can be slight rough, noisy etc. Nothing mentioned about long drives or anything else.
Thanks

Yup

As above, you've bought the wrong car for the type of driving you do.

You need to factor in some long motorway runs to allow the DPF to get up to temp to clean itself.

My brother has the same problem. Bought a Leon 1.6 TDI - has endless problems with the DPF getting clogged up as he only does short runs. I've the same engine in a Golf but do 25K per year and long runs - no issues at all.

I dont think you're going to find anyone to blame and take ownership - down to you and your usage.

Iceweasel

scenaria wrote: »

I drive about 10 miles to & from work, five days a week. Every couple of months go to London. On the user manual it says DPF collects soot particulates & burns them periodically at high temperatures, while doing this engine can be slight rough, noisy etc. Nothing mentioned about long drives or anything else.
Thanks

Are you meaning 5 miles to work and then 5 miles home again?


One of the necessary conditions which you were obviously unaware of is that in order to burn off that soot the engine needs to be fully up to normal working temperature and stay at that temperature for the minimum of 15 to 20 minutes needed for the regeneration.


This is NOT a design fault - it's mis-selling as they should have pointed out how a modern diesel exhaust/emissions system works.


There is nothing wrong with the car as such.


The characteristics of a diesel are such that it takes longer to reach normal temperature - so your car never gets a chance do that.


Lots of folks are finding this out, just as you did - a bit late.


Good luck with this.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

My view is that the trade knows full well what the limitations on DPFs are, both functionally, and that unusually the manufacturers will not warrant them. These limitations should be made crystal clear to the buyer.

You can confirm the often bizarre requirements to maintain these devices in the manual (driving for a minimum of 30 minutes at absolutely not less than 50mph in a low gear to heat the engine to a high temperature - simply slowing for a roundabout may reset the monitor so potentially you actually need to drive for an hour going nowhere at a quiet time of day). You can often only find this out by reading the manual which you do not receive until after you have bought the car - and who but nerds read a manual from cover to cover? Therefore you could not reasonably be aware of this fundamental limitation at the time of purchase, and the seller did nothing to identify whether your driving profile was suitable for the product.

The chances are you didn't even know you had a DPF, which are a response to the environmental disaster that the move to desiel is causing (ask why Paris?).

I would suggest that you get proper legal support as you have been mis-sold a car which is unfit for purpose and the limitations were not made clear to you.

I suspect it will be a hard fight as the industry is well aware of the fundamental flaws in these devices, but consumer legislation is on your side. Talk to trading standards.

I suspect that the choice is to have a modfication to disable the DPF, though I am not sure of the ramifications of that (reliability and performance vehicle excise duty due to pollution) though a blocked DPF can damage the engine, or to insist that the lease company exchange the car for a suitable petrol model, with sensible adjustments to the lease agreement that make it a fair exchange to you.

Nodding_Donkey

I basically agree with what Ian has said above (except the trading standards bit as they are next to useless but that's another story ) but an important question is did you go to Lex Leasing and say you wanted a car to do 7000 miles a year or did you go to a stealer and they arranged the leasing? More importantly, did you got to either and say "I want a Mini Diesel"?

motorguy

IanMSpencer wrote: »

My view is that the trade knows full well what the limitations on DPFs are, both functionally, and that unusually the manufacturers will not warrant them. These limitations should be made crystal clear to the buyer.

You can confirm the often bizarre requirements to maintain these devices in the manual (driving for a minimum of 30 minutes at absolutely not less than 50mph in a low gear to heat the engine to a high temperature - simply slowing for a roundabout may reset the monitor so potentially you actually need to drive for an hour going nowhere at a quiet time of day). You can often only find this out by reading the manual which you do not receive until after you have bought the car - and who but nerds read a manual from cover to cover? Therefore you could not reasonably be aware of this fundamental limitation at the time of purchase, and the seller did nothing to identify whether your driving profile was suitable for the product.

The chances are you didn't even know you had a DPF, which are a response to the environmental disaster that the move to desiel is causing (ask why Paris?).

I would suggest that you get proper legal support as you have been mis-sold a car which is unfit for purpose and the limitations were not made clear to you.

I suspect it will be a hard fight as the industry is well aware of the fundamental flaws in these devices, but consumer legislation is on your side. Talk to trading standards.

I suspect that the choice is to have a modfication to disable the DPF, though I am not sure of the ramifications of that (reliability and performance vehicle excise duty due to pollution) though a blocked DPF can damage the engine, or to insist that the lease company exchange the car for a suitable petrol model, with sensible adjustments to the lease agreement that make it a fair exchange to you.

Whilst i agree with a lot of what you're saying, you seem to be suggesting that the O/P hires a legal team and takes on the might of the BMW / MINI group and get them to admit that DPFs are not fit for purpose??

You *could* remove the DPF but i cant see the leasing company being happy if they ever twigged.

Also, i suspect the O/P, like many has opted for a diesel due to its economy, without researching the implications. I doubt the dealer and / or LEX have said "i know you really want a petrol MINI but heres a diesel one instead".

worried_jim

motorguy wrote: »

Also, i suspect the O/P, like many has opted for a diesel due to its economy, without researching the implications. I doubt the dealer and / or LEX have said "i know you really want a petrol MINI but heres a diesel one instead".

When I worked in sales there was many an occasion a customer would come in and say I want "y" when I knew that "x" would be far suitable and may have been even cheaper. However, I soon learnt that as soon as you put that doubt into their already made up mind your sale and commission was lost. So they asked for "y" and I took the order for "y" every-time.

scenaria

As I mentioned earlier the user manual doesn't say anything about driving in relation to the way that the DPF works. I went to the Lex website to place the order & chose Mini Diesel clearly mentioning the annual mileage of 7000, then I spoke to them many times during processing the order & no one mentioned about anything in relation to driving style at all; not only that when the problem first started, I called Lex and the person I spoke to said that this is a problem with the exhaust and asked me to go to Kwikfit, who maintains the car for Lex(obviously my leasing price includes maintenance). Kwikfit then asked me to go to Mini Cardiff.