Does anyone have this option? Is it worth the extra money? What is the benefit of having the ability to manually regenerate vs. automatic regeneration? Our order doesn't go in until Tuesday, so I can still get it on the order if there is a benefit to it...
Thanks!

 

A few more questions...

With the manual regen option, does it still automatically regen if the circumstances are right? How long does the automatic or manual regen take to complete?

I'm thinking I might just order the option for the heck of it...

 

We have it at the county I work for on our newest ambulance, F450 chassis. Since we idle a lot I usually check the DPF %, when it's full you activate regen and it will idle up in park and clean the DPF. Don't know if the 450's are different than the 250/350.

 

I have a 2017 F-450 XLT that I bought the Operator Commanded Regeneration on. We have only had it since the end of April, and have only had two regenerations. The first was an "operator commanded regeneration", the second was a passive regeneration while driving on the highway. The manual was fairly accurate with its description about how and when I was prompted to perform an OCR. It took approximately thirty minutes while sitting in the driveway. The manual says that an OCR may be shorter depending on factors. As for the passive regeneration, I was not paying attention to the filter screen so I cannot say for sure how long it took, but the manual mentions at least 20 minutes at highway speeds for active regeneration after the engine reaches operating temperature, and the drive we were on is approximately a thirty minute drive one way.

I am still confused about the difference between active and passive, but I think 'active' the exhaust system gets diesel sprayed in to heat up the exhaust higher just before it enters the DPF. That an OCR is an 'active' stationary regeneration, while without the OCR option if the computer prompts you to drive around it will perform a mobile 'active' regeneration. Otherwise it is always passive.

I bought the OCR option so as not to have to deal with the mobile active regeneration, if I understand correctly, it will prompt you to drive around for 20 minutes minimum to get back to 0%, or less if you don't drive around long enough. I would rather sit in the driveway or parking lot while the OCR completes, I can read while this is happening. Most of the driving we do do is on the highway, so I am not sure I will need to perform an OCR very often. I had expected the passive regeneration to kick in early on before I had to perform the OCR because all the drives were highway ~ thirty minutes. After the OCR it did do a passive regeneration so possibly there was some sort of burn in ???

When I was shopping, one salesman said his maintenance shop manager said all Super Duty diesels have the OCR. What I think he was referring to was that if you have the plug in and software like the repair shops do, you can initiate an stationary 'active' regeneration without having paid for the OCR. On this forum there are threads where supposedly users have been able to turn on the feature so the next time they can just initiate it from the menu system. The few threads I had seen on this they were working on Lariat trim models. There is even a Ford video showing a mechanic initiating a stationary 'active' regeneration using a laptop on a Super Duty diesel, which I think was also a Lariat trim model. You may want to find these threads and read up on them, it may be better suited to you, or at least you'd know.

I asked and got a seemingly intuitive answer to 'why is OCR only offered on XL and XLT'. The answer I got was that those two trims tend to be bought for work trucks, who in turn tend to idle the most, and are more likely to want to be stationary during the regeneration. -- I have no reason to idle, since I use the truck for personal use. The OCR option was one of three reasons that kept me from going with the Lariat trim.

 

Thanks for the reply and info. I just spoke to our salesman and told him just to keep it on the order... I figured better to have it and not need it...