I have put about 11,500 miles (mostly pulling17k trailer) over the last 18 months. I have never seen a recent message on the screen how ever my tailpipe are always coated with black soot. My friend has identical truck and her pipes burn lean. What gives?

 

Depending on what calibration your pcm has it will go through regeneration with out the ic stating it may come on for couple seconds then go away the only time it will state drive to clean exhaust or cleaning exhaust is when the dpf is getting close to being restricted the message will stay on the ic through out the whole cycle once it's done it will say exhaust cleaning complete as for why your tips are black it's because the dpf filter is internally Crack where soot is bypassing the filter but that will not effect performance of truck so you are ok