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'15 F350 REGEN CLOGGED DPF WHILE TOWING! HELP

10K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  Durapig Eater 
#1 · (Edited)
My vacation which started today and ended 2 hours later due to my F350's inability to clean out my DPF while towing. Last regen was about a week ago and my lovely wife drove the truck for 20 minutes at 75mph when the cleaning exhaust notice flashed on the dash.

Today, while towing a 10k lb fifth wheel, I got a regeneration notice 20 minutes into the drive. It occured 2 more times and on the 3rd time I got another warning saying that the DPF was overloaded, a check engine light came one, and was told to keep driving. Driving further did nothing for me.

I'd like to be able to hit the mountains to camp and ATV with my only vacation this summer so time is not on my side.

What can I do to prevent this from occurring again?

I ended up running the vehicle in idle, disconnecting the fuel return line and draining 15 gallons of diesel fuel. I dumped it in my wife's diesel she drives to tow our ATVS. I added fresh fuel from another gas station, disconnected the trailer, and drove the snot out of my truck with rpms between 2500 to 3000 rpm at speeds 85 to 95 mph. I got another regeneration/cleaning exhaust notice but this time I did not get another warning that the DPF was overloaded. I drive for 2 hours and burned a total of 14 gallons of diesel.

I topped off with 5 gallons of B100 biodiesel (I trust this stuff and have used this station/fuel's B100 for over 12 years) and filled the rest with the petroleum's station's premium diesel. I figured a dash of bio would burn cleaner with less soot and hopefully this issue won't resurface when I tow my camper again to our camping spot.

Anybody else have this happen?

Is there a device I can buy to force a manual stationary regeneration like the dealer does?

Could this be bad fuel?

I added 8 oz of Grey Power Service Diesel to full tank, could this have caused the clogging issue? Note: also added 8 oz to my wife's diesel which has only a 20 gallon tank versus 36 gallons and she had no DPF problems on her rig.

Fuel for wife's rig and mine were from same gas station but hers was in the morning and mine was about 7 hours later. Never had a problem with fuel there and all 3 of our diesels use fuel from this gas station.

can anybody tell me WTF happened and ruined the first day of our camping trip? Why wouldn't the DPF regenerate while towing?

I've never had seen a regeneration while towing before. The only times I had gotten regens was when not towing a heavy load...very weird.

2015 F350 with 6900 miles, 3/4 of that towing and remaining 1/4 was all highway at 75mph for about a month when my wife's turbo actuator gave up the ghost requiring me to get a rebuilt unit from Europe. This truck does not get driven on short trips in city driving conditions and when not towing, it is driven a minimum of 20 miles to wife's job on I25 at speeds averaging 70 mph and when my main ride is broken, I drive the truck 120 miles round trip at 75 to 90 mph. Very little city/stop and go.


Please help me understand what happened. I lost a big bet with my boss who bought a Ram 3500 the same week I bought my F350. Who ever gets a check engine light first loses and I hate losing.
 
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#2 ·
Not sure about the other tuners or monitors but the Edge products will perform a manual regen. I used my Insight CTS2 (monitor not a programmer) to perform a manual regen a couple weeks ago. It took about 17 minutes or so. Yes, it was noisy, but not excessive, as the truck sitting still and running at 2000rpm.

You can find a used CTS for approx 300 on eBay or a new CTS2 for approx 370.
 
#4 ·
Diesel kleen was not kind to my dpf at all, Regens every 150 or so. Archoil has been working great for me, I was going to try stanadyne performance, revex distance, and Motorcraft cetain too, but the archoil works so well and the price of treatment is low I never made it that far.
Towing heavy will give you passive regeneration, meaning your egts will be higher thus burning off soot without going into regen as often. Fuel also plays a factor, if you have a station that offers "premium diesel" vs #2, or a higher cetain fuel will help.
So again forget power service grey and get something else, try a different fuel.
 
#5 ·
b100 will clog up your dpf and is more than likely the cause of your issues

run real diesel

its not an old school truck where you can run bio no problem. 20% max on these new trucks.

PS Diesel Kleen gives me .5 mpg improvement on a tank and it regens less when I run it. But I rarely run it.
 
#6 ·
5 gallons of b100 in a 36 gallon tank is less than b20, would be at b13.8. I didn't see where you said you had used premium diesel either.
Not sure how bio would clog a dpf, but I don't not belive it. On the other hand bio is super lubricious although hydroscopic...
20 miles will not generally get everything up to temperature enough to be able to do a real regen, and idling a lot will load the dpf pdq.
On a better note "drive to clean" is not a check engine light👍
I wouldn't worry too much about it, but do try a different additive.
 
#7 ·
We have a diesel fuel in our area that is called HPR. It is made by propel fuels. I guess it is derived from animal fats or something along those lines. I run it sometimes. It has a high ceatine level. My truck likes it too. Runs quieter,a little more power and the oil stays clean.

Now I am not sure about this a 100% but I was told if you are deleted and you get pulled over and can provide receipts that show all you use is HPR they will let you go. I guess it is considered an alternative fuel. I guess it burns extremely clean. I wouldn't take my word for it though. I heard it from my best friends brothers cousin.

Ford told me to never run B100 so I do not. When I used to have my race gas made for my sand car I asked if I could blend my own fuels and they said that it is more complicated than that. So you putting 5 gallons of B100 might not mix like you think. It might still be B100. Also it could go to the bottoms of the tank or float to the top and still be segregated.

I am very sceptical of supplements as well. My 2012 went 120,000 miles with no such supplements. I know that is not a lot, however I do not keep my trucks that long normally. It had no fuel issues and that is important to me.

Well in the end what was the outcome? Did you have to take it to ford? Did it clean itself out?
 
#8 ·
I think that eventually a bio fuel will be the answer to emissions, 0 nox. Now if they can figure out how to make it with out using an equal amount of dino in the process, and no one is in a hurry at $2.25/gallon to replace dino either. I have also heard through my uncles neighbors ex father in law about a bio made from algae that has been used to scrub co2 from power plants. Something like the algea doubles in population every day and can harvest half of it daily, turn the proteins into diesel and the starches into animal feed or maybe brewed into ethanol. Three birds with one stone, algae performing a "necessary" task, and "wast" turned into a high commodity, that is some MIT stuff right there.
 
#10 ·
No expert at all but I play one on TV. What I can say with 100% confidence is that Archoil made my regens go from every 250 miles to about 350-400 between and don't take as long to burn down below .90 soot. They still start at the same numbers. At 3.1% soot I get the 100% load. The 1st thing that happens is the DPF load drops to 0% then at an average of 3.4 % soot the regen kicks on. I have the CTS insight so I can watch it come down while in regen. Before Archoil it took 20-24 miles at 70mph to get down to less than 1% soot. Now , if driving is uninterrupted I get down to .9% in about 15 miles. My dealer and the owner of a local shop told me to never use the B100. I do mostly short trips around town so I actually try to plan a drive when I get close to a regen so I can drive all the way through it.
 
#11 ·
He found out that the service department at his dealer over filled the oil by 4 quarts and it was pumping oil into the intake via the ccv and clogged up the works.
 
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