I drive a 2008 6.4L F-250 as my "daily driver" in the Los Angeles area (about 25 miles to work). Not necessarily the best "commuter" vehicle but it's all I have. The regen mode has always bothered me... loud groaning noise on decel, reduced power, horrible fume smell in cab, etc. It seems to regen every couple days. I understand that in a perfect world, I am supposed to keep driving until the regen has completed, but I don't live in a perfect world. I drive to work, I drive home, and if it is in the middle of a regen (usually never completes) I park it and go inside. These regens are happening so often that I am now going to take the DPF off and have it professionally cleaned, then replace it. It seems that this should be a fairly easy task. I'm not really sure that I have a question, but would like to confirm that the DPF is easy to take off and would like to get any other opinions regarding the cleaning of the DPF to reduce the frequency of the regen mode. The cleaning is $200 and a replacement is $1,700. I thought it worth the $200 gamble before replacing the DPF.

 

you can take a long trip of about two hours and run some lucas DPF cleaner thru the fuel and probally save the professional cleaning bill.

the professional cleaning will not clean the carbon off you EBP (exhaust back pressure sensor) but the Lucas DPF cleaner will.

 

Thanks, speakerfritz... Do you think a single two hour drive running the DPF cleaner in the fuel would do the trick? How often do you think this will need to occur?

 

Keeping it clean after would be another issue. There are products that seem to reduce soot which would lower regen frequency. One of these is the fuel additive Archoil AR6200. I use that with Opti-Lube Summer in the fuel. Valvoline Premium Blue Extreme 5w40 has been reported by some to help reduce regens as well. I haven't gotten around to the Valvoline yet, but the combo of AR6200 & Opti-Lube in the fuel, as well as AR9100 in the oil have my regens at 400-600 miles with a daily commute of 38 miles each way.
Edit: Started recording regens when I began using the 5-Star Daily Tow tune and my regens changed from a guestimate of 300-350 miles to a recorded 500-600 miles so the tune had significant benefit by increased torque with less throttle and transmission tuning that keeps the RPMs higher.

 

I'm going to try the Lucas Oil Diesel Deep Clean... just ordered 6 bottles for something like $90 on ebay... it's sort of hard to find a single bottle anywhere. I sure hope this works.

 

it took two tankfulls of driving a few long trips to get the regn process down to the point to where I dont even notice it is happening. initally the "drive to clean exhaust" and the smoke was driving me crazy and very frequent.

DPF profesional cleaning is recommended by gray beards at about 100K miles but if the folks doing the cleaning dont use a process that involves baking the DPF then all they are doing is spraying it with the 2 QT DPF cleaing kit. the professional bake cleaning will cost you 1000 bucks so if your getting a cleaning for 200 bucks they are probally using the 2 QT spray kit that does not involve baking.

you can also manually remove the EBP sensor and use a coar hanger to clean out the bung hole of all the carbon thats blocking the EBP bung hole.

 

My Lucas Oil DPF Deep Clean arrived today. It sounds like now I need to dump a bottle in the tank, fill it will diesel, then drive it on the highway for a couple hours. It will have to wait until the weekend. If anybody else has any experience with this, I would appreciate hearing about it. Otherwise, I will update the post after I have completed my "Sunday Drive".

 

FWIW, I've been using Opti-Lube Summer and AR6200 in the fuel plus AR9100 in the oil. My regens now happen close to every 600 miles. Before my first oil change at 5000 miles when I first added AR9100, I had been playing with the two fuel additives using one or the other and both together. I wasn't recording regens but they seemed to happen every 350 miles. I do have a 76 mile round trip so no idling and little city, but was really surprised at the close to 600 mile frequency. All three say they reduce soot and combined with my longer drives, seem to work well together.

 

Thanks for that info, Ski... Although my driving characteristics are much different than yours (Los Angeles Traffic driving about 25 to 30 miles one way), and my regens rarely complete before I park (either at my office in the morning, or at my home in the evening), I will look into the additives that you mentioned.

 

You may want to get an Edge Insight CTS to help you monitor DPF soot levels so you can occasionally schedule a fun run. My CTS actually warns me of impending regens prior to the dash notification. Just as I got to my mailbox this afternoon, the CTS red regeneration light came on, I put it in park to stop it and have something to look forward to on the way to work tomorrow.

 

I think the bottle says it treats 25 gallons so try to fuel it accordingly. My truck has a 40 gallon tank .

And don't panic if the first regens is very smokey....that's the carbon that got loosened up.

 

Ahhh... thanks for that warning about the potential smoke. By the way, my tank is about 25 gallons, so that should make it easy.

 

Try to use a lower gear in heavy traffic to keep your rpms up. That will help with the regens as well.

You might try a banks 6 gun to help with the tuning of the truck as well. This Tuner is EO certified for California and comes with the certification so you don't have to take it off. It is a clean tuner for emissions.

My regens were in the 500 miles apart when empty for the life of my 6.4. I could also achieve 16-17 mpgs on the hwy.

 

Good idea with the lower gear in traffic, Senix. I know NOTHING about those tuners and what they do. Does the 6 gun require any other modifications, or just install the tuner? Not sure what EO certification even is. Will the tuner increase performance? Does this certification make it legal in California? Any additional information in this regard would be appreciated.

 

Certification makes it legal in California.


Work it works in line with the truck's pcm. It does not modifiy the programming.


What it does do is adjust the timing and fuel trims to better optimize the running of the motor.


go to bankspower.com and learn about it.


BTW I have vested interest in banks. I just ran one for about 80K before I sold my 6.4 to get a DRW.