Can I drive my car with DPF flashing
Discussion
I have a 2010 Mazda 6 2.2 TS2 deisel,had done only 1100 miles and was 9 months old when bought,it was fine and has been serviced only by Mazda and always earlier than the stated service interval usually for my convenience.
Luckily I have extended the warrenty as one week after a service at 5700 miles the oil warning light came on and car was towed to dealer.
Was told that exhaust gasses had got through an injector seal,caused soot to form,this had got into sump,blocked strainer and led to oil starvation.
Three weeks in dealers to fix,crank shells,turbo etc,£4000.00 bill I was told,warrenty took care of that but I did have to pay for some of the car hire and injector pipes.
This was in February 2014,and I have just had a run in now with the dpf filter at 6700 miles,dpf light came on on two occasions after a 100 mile motorway journey,I managed to get it off after reading manual,but a third time it would not go off but had no other symptoms other than warning light.
Took it in for early service thinking oil change was required to set it right.
Dealer could not get light to go out so I was told new dpf needed at around £3000.00,dealer conacted Mazda and suggested I did too to see if they would contribute to cost although it is not covered by warranty,luckily they payed 80% but I still had a bill for £900.00.
They replaced dpf and I also needed two new gas sensors as they were unable to get the ones out of the old dpf,stuck in by heat and weathering I was told,£200.00 per sensor,another two weeks off the road because of bank holidays and getting parts and car hire to pay for.
This has been my first Mazda aand will be my last,are deisels not worth buying anymore from any manufacturer becuse of dpf systems?I prefer a diesel car so would be glad to hear about any makes that are worth having some faith in,as I have no faith in my Mazda anymore and it will be going as soon as I can find out what is worth buying.
Luckily I have extended the warrenty as one week after a service at 5700 miles the oil warning light came on and car was towed to dealer.
Was told that exhaust gasses had got through an injector seal,caused soot to form,this had got into sump,blocked strainer and led to oil starvation.
Three weeks in dealers to fix,crank shells,turbo etc,£4000.00 bill I was told,warrenty took care of that but I did have to pay for some of the car hire and injector pipes.
This was in February 2014,and I have just had a run in now with the dpf filter at 6700 miles,dpf light came on on two occasions after a 100 mile motorway journey,I managed to get it off after reading manual,but a third time it would not go off but had no other symptoms other than warning light.
Took it in for early service thinking oil change was required to set it right.
Dealer could not get light to go out so I was told new dpf needed at around £3000.00,dealer conacted Mazda and suggested I did too to see if they would contribute to cost although it is not covered by warranty,luckily they payed 80% but I still had a bill for £900.00.
They replaced dpf and I also needed two new gas sensors as they were unable to get the ones out of the old dpf,stuck in by heat and weathering I was told,£200.00 per sensor,another two weeks off the road because of bank holidays and getting parts and car hire to pay for.
This has been my first Mazda aand will be my last,are deisels not worth buying anymore from any manufacturer becuse of dpf systems?I prefer a diesel car so would be glad to hear about any makes that are worth having some faith in,as I have no faith in my Mazda anymore and it will be going as soon as I can find out what is worth buying.
ajdriver84 said:
I haven't been on here in ages, so apologies for asking for some advice without contributing for the past few years.
Yesterday evening my Mazda 6 2.2d Sport 185 (2009) made a quiet beep then about a mile later, the DPF light started flashing. The handbook states its because the particle filter needs attention. I find this strange as it never had a constant DPF light which suggests you drive at 2,000 revs for 20 mins to clear it. Also, it is NOT in limp mode and performance seems normal. So I'm thinking it could just be telling me my service is due? It would be due about now but I had it done when I bout the car 5 months ago by an independent.
Is there easy way to tell if its a service reminder or the expensive diesel particle filter fault?
cheers
Alan
Alan , I had the same problem with my 185bhp mazda 3 it turned out that it needed the computer resetting. Apparently its mazdas way of getting you to take it to your Mazda dealer so they can charge you ridiculous amounts for a service I like you was a bit worried about driving it but as mine had only done 25000 I thought I had better check with a local garage who said as they didn't have Mazdas soft ware they couldn't do it .Yesterday evening my Mazda 6 2.2d Sport 185 (2009) made a quiet beep then about a mile later, the DPF light started flashing. The handbook states its because the particle filter needs attention. I find this strange as it never had a constant DPF light which suggests you drive at 2,000 revs for 20 mins to clear it. Also, it is NOT in limp mode and performance seems normal. So I'm thinking it could just be telling me my service is due? It would be due about now but I had it done when I bout the car 5 months ago by an independent.
Is there easy way to tell if its a service reminder or the expensive diesel particle filter fault?
cheers
Alan
Some Mazda main dealers are better than others and, in my opinion, some are little more than authorised crooks (and certainly not the experts that you would hope they would be for the money they charge).
I have a 2009 Mazda 3 Sport 2.2 Diesel (185BHP). I've always had it serviced at the Mazda dealer in Cambridge from which I purchased it. On more than one of my services I had mentioned to them that sometimes my engine made a very different sound - a much throatier sound than normal, and that it never lasted very long. At no point did anyone suggest that this was probably just the DPF doing a routine regen cycle. They were quite happy to charge me £85 to connect it up to their diagnostic machine though! Of course they never found anything wrong with the engine.
Around the end of 2013 I experienced a flashing DPF light. My car had done about 50,000 miles at that point. I didn't even know what a "DPF" at the time so I did a search for it on the internet and found forums like this with all sorts of horror stories about people having to have DPF replaced etc. I studied the owners manual and found some vague information.
In the end I took the car in to the same main dealer. I expected them to tell me that there was too much fuel in the engine oil and that I just needed an oil and filter change and maybe even a forced regeneration. Instead, they told me that the flashing light meant that I needed to have my timing chain replaced and that it wasn't safe to drive it. This cost me in excess of £1100. Then they also charged me for a full service (including an oil change!) so I paid £1400 altogether. I have never been convinced I really needed a new timing chain but when a main dealer tells you that's what you need (and it's not safe to drive the car), you have no other option.
Since then I have done less than 9,000 miles and today my DPF light started flashing again on a long journey. I checked the oil level and it is all the way up to the "x" on the dipstick (way too high). I'm praying that an oil change and oil data reset will sort this problem. I'm taking it to a different Mazda dealer this time.
The fact is, most people know VERY little about how a complex turbo diesel engine works and it seems that Mazda have been shockingly bad at revealing the details of how their DPFs work and what the DPF lights indicate. If you take your car to an unscrupulous dealer they are likely to take full advantage of the mystery that surrounds DPF filters and fleece you for lots of money. If you take it to an incompetent dealer they're just as likely to take large sums of money from you by taking a "trial and error" approach (at your expense) and randomly replacing parts that don't need to be replaced until the problem is fixed (or not in many cases).
I would also contend that it's not beyond a main dealer to forget or even deliberately neglect to reset the oil level data codes so that you end up having to take the car back to them!
I have a 2009 Mazda 3 Sport 2.2 Diesel (185BHP). I've always had it serviced at the Mazda dealer in Cambridge from which I purchased it. On more than one of my services I had mentioned to them that sometimes my engine made a very different sound - a much throatier sound than normal, and that it never lasted very long. At no point did anyone suggest that this was probably just the DPF doing a routine regen cycle. They were quite happy to charge me £85 to connect it up to their diagnostic machine though! Of course they never found anything wrong with the engine.
Around the end of 2013 I experienced a flashing DPF light. My car had done about 50,000 miles at that point. I didn't even know what a "DPF" at the time so I did a search for it on the internet and found forums like this with all sorts of horror stories about people having to have DPF replaced etc. I studied the owners manual and found some vague information.
In the end I took the car in to the same main dealer. I expected them to tell me that there was too much fuel in the engine oil and that I just needed an oil and filter change and maybe even a forced regeneration. Instead, they told me that the flashing light meant that I needed to have my timing chain replaced and that it wasn't safe to drive it. This cost me in excess of £1100. Then they also charged me for a full service (including an oil change!) so I paid £1400 altogether. I have never been convinced I really needed a new timing chain but when a main dealer tells you that's what you need (and it's not safe to drive the car), you have no other option.
Since then I have done less than 9,000 miles and today my DPF light started flashing again on a long journey. I checked the oil level and it is all the way up to the "x" on the dipstick (way too high). I'm praying that an oil change and oil data reset will sort this problem. I'm taking it to a different Mazda dealer this time.
The fact is, most people know VERY little about how a complex turbo diesel engine works and it seems that Mazda have been shockingly bad at revealing the details of how their DPFs work and what the DPF lights indicate. If you take your car to an unscrupulous dealer they are likely to take full advantage of the mystery that surrounds DPF filters and fleece you for lots of money. If you take it to an incompetent dealer they're just as likely to take large sums of money from you by taking a "trial and error" approach (at your expense) and randomly replacing parts that don't need to be replaced until the problem is fixed (or not in many cases).
I would also contend that it's not beyond a main dealer to forget or even deliberately neglect to reset the oil level data codes so that you end up having to take the car back to them!
I have a question. My dpf light is flashing on my 57 plate mazda 6, bought it a few month ago full mazda service history aside from the service done by the garage I bought it from. Plugged it into the diagnostics machine and it is saying there is a dpf problem. I've heard that it doubles as a service light and madza reset it when they personally perform a service. So my question is if I reset my dpf light myself and there is genuinely a problem with my filter will it come back on? I don't want there to be a problem that I'm unaware of but also don't want to be paying a fortune trying to get to the bottom of this to find that it's just a service light. Any help on this would be great, bearing in mind I'm a bit of a novice with cars. Thanks!
RachaelKell90 said:
I have a question. My dpf light is flashing on my 57 plate mazda 6, bought it a few month ago full mazda service history aside from the service done by the garage I bought it from. Plugged it into the diagnostics machine and it is saying there is a dpf problem. I've heard that it doubles as a service light and madza reset it when they personally perform a service. So my question is if I reset my dpf light myself and there is genuinely a problem with my filter will it come back on? I don't want there to be a problem that I'm unaware of but also don't want to be paying a fortune trying to get to the bottom of this to find that it's just a service light.? Any help on this would be great, bearing in mind I'm a bit of a novice with cars. Thanks!
I am unclear from your text as to whether it was you who plugged it into your diagnostic machine, or if you went to a dealer who plugged into a machine. Either way you state that it is a DPF problem rather then a service interval issue. If you manage to clear the warning but it is a genuine DPF problem, it will return very quickly. You are in for a very large bill. Based on my experience (see entry above), clear it and sell it immediately (my estimate for a flashing DPF light was in excess of £3000)If you clear the warning and it does not return, then it is a service warning that the garage you bought it from did not update. From your description I doubt this is the case. Sorry.
Hi,
I have a 2009 2.2D Mazda 6 and the only time I've seen the DPF light come on was definitely as a service indicator! The dealer where I had my car serviced put a sticker on the windscreen with the mileage that the next service was due (ie. +12000 miles from the previous service) and I was a bit lax and kept driving. The DPF light then came on exactly 13000 miles after the last service. Since then I've made a note of the mileage that the light has come on and I've reset it myself. I get the car serviced at a non Mazda dealer. The light always comes on exactly 13000 miles after the last service. I reset it in ten minutes using a video I found on Youtube that works fine. All you need is a piece of wire and maybe a spanner to undo an earthing point bolt. Here is the video..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV3_TYoWzAs
I have a 2009 2.2D Mazda 6 and the only time I've seen the DPF light come on was definitely as a service indicator! The dealer where I had my car serviced put a sticker on the windscreen with the mileage that the next service was due (ie. +12000 miles from the previous service) and I was a bit lax and kept driving. The DPF light then came on exactly 13000 miles after the last service. Since then I've made a note of the mileage that the light has come on and I've reset it myself. I get the car serviced at a non Mazda dealer. The light always comes on exactly 13000 miles after the last service. I reset it in ten minutes using a video I found on Youtube that works fine. All you need is a piece of wire and maybe a spanner to undo an earthing point bolt. Here is the video..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV3_TYoWzAs
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