Using a BMW diesel for short journeys

longwalks1

I've a friend whos just moved a lot closer to work, he used to commute 40 miles each way, 5 days a week, now he lives 6 miles away and wants to keep his current car a BMW 320d 2013 model (I think its a F30 model?)



I've said about the dangers of using a diesel car for such short journeys (I actually considered it a few years ago but was talked out of it) regarding the DPF (I think), but is there anything he can do to reduce the chance of damage to his engine as he is adament on keeping his pride and joy

AdrianC

Does he ever use the car for anything but commuting?

foxy-stoat

Doing a long run once a week or maybe twice a month at the very least to regen the DPF.

longwalks1

AdrianC wrote: »

Does he ever use the car for anything but commuting?

not much, he walks into town now he lives close, has shopping delivered and visits his family once every other week, they live about 30 miles away I think

AdrianC

britishboy wrote: »

not much, he walks into town now he lives close, has shopping delivered and visits his family once every other week, they live about 30 miles away I think

60 mile round trip every fortnight may be enough. It'll depend on driving style and roads, too.

But, really, he's driving totally the wrong car for his life. Any bets the perceived status of the badge is a large part of his refusal to accept reality?

foxy-stoat

I would think that a 30 mile trip will be enough every week but if he finds himself with error codes then he can either pay to have the dpf taken off and cleaned once or twice a year or sell it for a petrol version.

moneysaver129

This seems a recurrent theme with BMW. They sometimes state at service time when avoiding work under their warranty 'your driving style is wrong for the car'. In other words their cars should only be driven by those who drive outside towns or cities (unlikely in the UK). Better avoid BMW - this 'clause' drives a coach and horses through their warranty and could be construed as an unfair contract term when used to get out of perfectly reasonable claims against their faulty vehicles.

Scrapit

6 mile journeys aren't great but are they fast miles? Also the dpf might not clog that quick if he is only doing 60miles a week as the car isn't running long enough to get clogged. But that will really depend on journey times, traffic etc.

Cap2019

I went from a 20 mile each way dual carriageway commute to a 6 mile each way dual carriage way commute and (touch wood) no problems so far. I have a 2013 1.6 CRDi Hyundai i30. I do still make the 20 mile each way journey once every 2 weeks, sometimes once every week, to visit family. I often drive home for lunch and then back 30 mins later with a warm engine so I don't know if that helps combined with minimal low speed, stop/start traffic most days. I also only fill up with BP diesel (previous owner used BP ultimate diesel exclusively and the car runs horribly rough when I try supermarket diesel) so that might make a difference. Go figure.

lexington013

No problems in my 5 year old Mercedes c220d with 20,000 miles on the clock........

moneysaver129

AdrianC wrote: »

Oh, and not everybody drives in cities. Don't extrapolate from your own life...

It is recurrent - read the post properly and do a little research on google before making silly comments - you will find reports of the event easily.