I got a 2 second "cleaning exhaust filter message" on my drive home tonight in my new truck with about 500km. I completed my drive and pulled off the highway into my yard. I don't know if it had finished cleaning yet but I unloaded the bed and then got back in the truck and drove another mile or two until the fuel economy was normal normal again.
The reason I did this was the underside of the truck was clicking and pinging as it cooled. You could smell the heat.
Is it necessary to drive to complete this cycle? Or could I have just pulled in and shut it off. I'm sure it would finish on the highway in the morning.
Other then the fuel economy increasing I couldn't tell anything else was going on.

 

To complete the cycle, yes, you would have needed to keep driving. Regens take around 10 minutes, and without a tool to monitor (Edge, TorquePro, etc.), you can tell by the changes in instantaneous fuel economy. Depending on how much soot was burned off, your truck may or may not have restarted the regen the next time you went driving. You will do no harm to the truck to shut it off in the middle of a regen, as it will regen again at some point. And yes, the exhaust will make a considerable amount of noise and smell like it's burning when you hop out after shutting down. I swear I can feel the heat on the driver's side when I hop out if I was in the middle of a regen on shutdown!

 

Once you put it in park, it ended the regeneration process (the computer stops it after about 7 seconds not in drive).
If the exhaust was up to proper regen temp (around 1100°F), then it will keep cleaning for a few additional miles due to the remaining heat but the engine isn't in regeneration.
It won't start again until the soot gpl count is at the number that triggers a regeneration.

If for example, you stopped it early but it had been in regeneration for several miles and you shut down, it'll start sooner but it could be 100 miles from then depending on how much soot was burned off before it was forcefully ended.

 

Strictly speaking, it really is a "set it and forget it" system. You will not do harm to it when you shut down during an active regen cycle.

Most will agree that it's not a good thing to do though. If you don't allow it to finish its work it will eventually snowball into "drive to clean" message which is your truck telling you that it needs to finish cleaning/ burning or there will be consequences.

Also, over the course of 10,000 miles you are likely to burn less diesel if you are persistent about driving at speed until any regen is completed. This strategy is to try to keep the mileage interval between regents a long as possible.

Do you ever tow anything for a few hundred miles? It's all I do and my truck does a regen about every 750 miles on average. Towing keeps the dpf hot enough to clean on its own.

 

I will be towing my 23ft boat and my flat deck with my FJ40 on top. But not until I get more miles on.
What monitor does the forum recommend?
Edge?
I'm not interested in any mods, just the monitor itself. I have read some of you know the soot content of the DPF!

 

I've had this on mine as well! I've only got a little over 1000 miles on the truck! It would appear, hit the OK button and then gone! You would think it would show that it is doing the regen and then also let you know it's done! I've not been on any long trips yet. We are leaving Saturday for the beach and I do plan on taking the truck.

What are you guys watching to see that the regen is happening and when it's done?

 

If you have to stop the regen, it a good idea to let the truck run in park for a minute. This is to prevent the turbo cooking the bearings.

 

Ricohman, I use an Edge Insight CTS. It's only a monitor, and has no tuning capabilities. Edge is now producing a second generation Insight, so if you were interested, the original Insight is probably on special somewhere. Quite a few of the guys on here use a Bluetooth adaptor for their OBD II port, and an App (like TorquePro) to view the truck's parameters on their smartphone or tablet. It would seem that the adapters and apps can be had for a significant savings over a monitor (provided you already own a smartphone or tablet, of course). The OBD II reader has the ability to show DPF soot level, and an indication that the truck is in regen mode, among MANY other parameters. I bought mine for piece of mind, and it was worth the expense in my opinion. There are numerous threads discussing the available options on this forum.

 

Great idea. I have a giant Samsung Note and the bluetooth adapter would be the way to go for me.
I'm going to check it out.

 

Don't feel too bad I triggered at just under 250 miles the other day. Of course the engine did apparently have 2 idle hours and 8 hours total so I guess it shouldn't have been a huge surprise.

 

I generally do this too for piece of mind. However, I'm not sure it is necessary since the heat is coming from the dpf and not really through the manifolds so the turbo itself may not really be that hot.

I usually try to never turn my engine off until my egt1 temp is below 400.

 

I run an H&S MiniMAxx (stock exhaust, stock truck) and the only way I can reliably tell if it's doing an active regen when I missed the menu post is based on the pyro 1 temperature readings. At highway speeds, flat land no wind, the truck hangs out at the mid 500 degree range. If it's doing an active regen, at least mid 700s and rail pressure is up as well. At lower speeds it's harder to tell...sometimes I could catch EBP as being higher than expected...but it wasn't always reliable and is extremely variant on driving conditions.

 

First off the active regen is not designed to control your life. You can drive as you need to and let the computers control the regen process. If that means shutting down in the middle, so be it,

The cleaner you DPF is, the longer between regen cycles. So if you only let it clean 50% your next regen cycle will be about 50% sooner than if you let it complete.

The downside is the fuel used to get up to temp. You will notice that when your system goes into a active regen your EGT temps will slowly climb to 1100 to 1200 degrees if you shut down early, you will have to drive those same 2-3 miles it takes to heat up the system to the temp where soot is burned.

I commute 40 miles to work. My regents will run for 20-30 miles before shutting down ands that 70 mph freeway speeds

 

I kind of wish that I could order the computer to regen myself. I would do that when I pull onto the highway in the morning. By the time I'm at the city it would be all but done.

 

None of the manual regeneration tools (that I'm aware of at least) command an AR while driving. Manual regen is stationary. It sounds like a jet engine in your driveway when you initiate a manual regen, too. Commanding one once above a certain soot GPL would be nice so that way it doesn't begin 5 miles from home after driving 250 miles.