I have a 2012 with 33k miles with build date of 10/2011. I monitor things with an Edge CTS and keep a log of all AR and all fuel fill ups, miles, time,etc.,. The AR's happen every 100-150 miles depending on driving habits since new. A couple of months ago I watched soot climb to 2.62 and then fall to 2.20 without going in to AR. The next few AR's were normal and then the same thing happened again. EGT4 is normal when in AR and when it is not in AR.

I send my oil samples to Blackstone. All OA's have been good until the one I did last month. The fuel dilution was 2.5% and it has always been below .5%. My oil change intervals are usually 6500 miles and this last one was 7300 miles.

Today I took a 100 mile trip and my soot level went from 2.19 to 2.22 which is really a small amount. The truck runs and sounds normal. Any ideas what may be going on? I wondered about a leaking injector.

I read on here everyday and appreciate the knowledge that is offered to those of us who do not have as much.

 

No way it should be doing regeneration that often, so yes, there is an issue.

Do you just do very short trips all the time?

Do you haul anything with the truck?

 

Active regens of 100-150 miles is very normal... I would sample your oil again to see if the fuel dilution stays the same or not.


A good barometer to the health of your engine is to simply check the fuel economy.

 

Mine does an active regen about once every tank of fuel. Educated guess...... Every 300 miles or so. I thought that was excessive, but I do not tow anything this time of year. Exhaust temps don't get much above 450 F (average). I understand that once exhaust temps get around 540 F or so the truck does a passive regen. I have not seen this yet as my temps don't get this high. I will let you know when I start towing!!

 

Active regen that often is not normal, unless all you do is very short trips and lots of idling.

 

I'm not an Expert. What is your Edge show for "Distance Since Last Complete Regeneration"? Where is the EGT4 located? I don't monitor with an Edge, but do with another monitor.

My 2013 F350 is caught in a 150 mile cycle and I find that normal for the weather and in town driving.

The 6.7L senses DPF pressure different then the 6.4L. It sense pressure only in one spot. I mention this because the PCM calculates the Soot Level with this pressure value and a calibrated baseline that to what it thinks the Soot Load is. Simply the Soot value will get out of range because of Residual Ash trapped in the DPF and the PCM is programmed to recalibrate when certain parameters are met. I believe that this happens the next start cycle after certain Active Regens if the PCM thinks that it is out of range. If for example you shut off your truck and the Soot was at 1.5 and when you restart your truck the next time and it is a different number, the PCM recalibrated to set a new baseline. This is why I monitor Soot % and Soot Load. I'm guessing because I don't know what number your Soot normally hits to start an Active Regen. Anyway, I think that after a few completed Regens your numbers will make sense again? I think this is normal because the PCM would give you a meassage if there was something wrong with the DPF.

I Don't take oil samples so I can't help you there.

As for the EGTs, When you first start the engine the PCM takes a reading of the firsts EGT (Mine is EGT1) past the turbo and other non EGT temperature sensors in the truck, this sets another baseline to tell the PCM that EGT1 and those sensors are reading correctly and working within range. It then takes that value from EGT1 and compares it with EGT2 and so on. I don't know what you mean is normal for EGT4, but if you mean that temperature doesn't go above 700 degrees when in AR, I would say that it is not normal. But because of the this testing your truck wouldn't run right and you would get a DTC. Which you don't.

I hope this makes sense. But your PCM protects the engine and if you had DPF problems it would tell you. As for the fuel dilution, hope we both get an answer.

 

Some comments on the above replies. I do very few short trips. Since purchasing I average 38 miles/engine hour. I also log this info. by tank. Also 20% of miles are towing 13k camper. My hand calculated MPG are a bit better in the last few months which is when the strange 'reduction' in soot levels began. AR's usually begin around 2.68 and last about 10 miles. It is like the truck is not making as much soot as it has in the past which is good for MPG. The curveball is the increase in fuel dilution.

During AR EGT4 gets to 1200 and during regular highway driving it is around 500. I do use PM22 in every tank. The AR process is normal it is just that the distance between AR's is different. It may be 125 miles this time and 300 miles the next time with the same driving. The 300 mile increase is new since last fall and this is the first OA I have done since the change in building of the soot level.

It is odd that the change in soot level production and increase in fuel dilution possibly occurred since the last oil change. I guess the next oil change will tell but that will be a few months out since this is not a daily driver. Thanks for the replies. I may be making something out of nothing but my data shows something is different. I have not done the recall update yet.

 

In winter my truck sees 100% in-town driving. My 2011 would regen at about the 150 mile mark with this style of driving. My 2015 in this same type of driving regens much less. The 2015 goes 350-500 miles between regens.

 

delete the PM 22 and see if that helps. I regen every once in a blue moon. Maybe once over 1K miles. Sometime not because of passive regens.


300-500 miles is what I would consider normal unloaded regens.

 

Your regen frequency is within Ford specification and is completely normal. Also if you purchased some bio diesel that would also increase fuel dilution in addition to slower driving during the regen process.

There are many variables that affect the regen frequency including ambient temperatures that you can't compare your driving style/environment to others.

 

I spent a lot of my engineering years as a test engineer and the first thing I see is data collection. You are pulling data from different points than Ford does, you are using and off the shelf tool that is uncalibrated and not certified for data standards collection. The result is you have to be cautious in your interpretation of the data.

Do you see any issues or signs something is wrong elsewhere?

What is your mpg

How long between oil changes

How does it run overall? In town, hwy and Interstate, full throttle accel, etc?

Consistency in your data extraction is what you are looking for.

You are working with a mass produced engine that is built with a wide set of operating parameters.

If you cannot validate your data based upon your driving experience and data being pulled from the organic data collection I would say you may be getting spurious data.

Suggest you send them 2 oil samples, both from the same oil draw and see what you get.

Trend analysis is your friend...




Several years ago, my Doc came to me and asked if I was still using hard drugs injected? WTH, Doc never used an illegal drug of any kind in my life! Have you ever had a blood transfusion. Yea, I think I might have, I had an operation from a wound in Vietnam, but cannot say for sure, too long ago. Well you have HEP C and its terminal. Well Doc I feel fine. So Doc runs tests again and does a liver biopsy...YEP you got HEP C! I go for second opinion and make sure they do not use the same lab for testing. NOPE, we find no indications of HEP C, I go for a 3rd opinion, NOPE we find no indications of HEP C or any other HEP strain!

 

Lots of info to chew on here.......

Fuel quality will effect your data so I'm wary of that. Regen every 100-150 miles in urban winter driving sounds perfectly normal to me.

Personally, I suggest you hook up to a 5-ton trailer and tow it for about 600 miles, ideally an all day interstate trip.

Why? I believe it would effectively be a reset button for your exhaust after treatment system. Get it good and hot for an extended period of time with large amounts of air flowing through it. Your system may simply be evolving into its natural state of equilibrium but it doesn't sound like you want it to so blow it out and start over.

Your driving patterns will be establishing unique baselines that match only your truck. Once all your driving reaches a point where there are no new roads, only repeat trips, your system will be baselined.

Or, I could be way off. An aged O2 sensor could be messing with the injector fuel trims.....who knows....

 

I agree with 17 Oaks:

I use an off the self monitor and through reverse engineering I made my own PIDs, this doesn't make it accurate but only relative. For an example 2.68 doesn't make a lot of sense to some people no matter what the units are. Most people know what percentage is and that is why I made a PID that displays Soot Percent. I have the ability to log PCM outputs and have for a long time. Some people do crosswords and I am addicted to this. I have connected Ford scanners to verify some of my PIDs but it takes the fun out of it. Like the OP knows that he should start a AR at 2.68 units, for some reason, I have to know why. He is now watching a trend and it is changing and he doesn't know if something is wrong, he only knows something has changed and now wants to know why. It is a curse if sometimes to have a monitor.

I'm not and expert but I believe that the OP's EGT4 is the sensor after the catalyst and that would be what I call EGT2 it is the second from the turbo. During AR it should be the first one to reach over 1000 degrees. That is why I was interested in knowing the loacation.

There a two things that I can think of that affect miles between AR (frequency). Soot Load, Distance Since Last Completed Regeneration (DSLR). Simply there is a differents between DSLR and AR Frequency. The PCM is programmed to calculate a AR Frequency from the miles between the past few sucessfull completed AR's, it seems to also force an AR when the DSLR reaches 500 miles when all the parameters are met. That is why I asked about his DSLR.

Anyway: Sorry about the length
The my truck is acting like the OP's, I don't have to monitor, the truck does it. Ford doesn't need or want guy's like me calling them an asking them if my readings are OK.
My truck is trying to start an AR at 500 miles with my Soot at 50%, the thing is, I don't finish an AR so the PCM subtracts 150 miles from the DSLR and when it reaches 500 miles again it starts an AR and this cycle will go on till I complete an AR and my Soot % doesn't reach 100%. If that happens then the PCM will give me a message to "Drive To Clean Exhaust Filter" which is telling me that the Truck isn't happy. If the AR is started before 500 miles then your PCM has calculated that your last AR's were caused by Soot Load and that it wants to shorten miles between the AR just to be sure that the DPF is getting completely clean.

I like the OP had a 6.4L, it was my first truck with a DPF, I'm glad it is gone too. One reason I monitor my 6.7L and my new dealer knows it. I monitor for fun and self interest, my family doesn't want to know this, I hope some of you do LOL. Again, no one has to monitor the truck, it will tell you if you have to do something and if something is wrong before it hurts the truck. Again I don't know anything about the fuel in the oil and will wait and see what you find out.

 

My 2011 went into regens every 100-150 miles, when I did a lot of city driving in it. My 2015 seems to go into regen every 200+ miles, BUT it stays in regen longer.

I consider both "normal". Fuel dilution I might worry about if everything is the same - I would keep an eye on that. 2.5% isn't at the threshold to do anything about, but certainly it would concern me it went from .5% to 2.5%. Fuel and additive use the same? You will get more fuel dilution with Bio and some fuel companies blend it in now. One of the reasons, Ford says to change the oil every 3k miles if you run Bio. (not saying you are running Bio, but just in case you are)

 

Thanks for the replies. A couple of notes. In the 1st post I mentioned a 100 mile trip where soot went form 2.19 to 2.22 per Edge CTS. The next day on the return 100 mile trip with the same fuel and route the soot went from 2.22 up to 2.68, it did an AR, dropped to 1.20 and climbed back to 1.60 at the end of the trip. The only difference is that it was 50 deg outside on the return trip where it was 30 deg on the initial trip.


In reading through posts the only difference in I see is on my last fill-up which was at a Murphy - not my 1st choice but all that was around. The pump had the ULSD sticker on it. Could it still have a have a large amount of Bio in it?


In data collection all I have is the Edge, truck odo., and fuel dispensers. They have been constant with the biggest variable being different fuel dispensers.


I will post findings on next OA if it is out of whack. In the meantime I will enjoy the increased MPG and hope that what I am seeing is a new baseline for the motor. I love the truck and it runs perfectly regardless of the condition or the load.