2022 F-350 6.7 Lariat
While resetting the engine oil life timer I noticed the message "Exhaust Filter 95% Full". Is this normal? DEF tank has never had less than 1/2 a tank. 90% of trips are 30 miles plus at highway speeds. I pull a variety of trailers about 15% of the time. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

 

DEF has nothing to do with the DPF, two separate systems.
Have you been idling the truck a lot lately, short around town low speed trips and such?
Go run a long highway trip, preferably with a trailer.

 

I've never seen that message but will see up to 99% on the DPF% screen prior to a regen starting. If I turn auto regen off, it will give me a message saying, exhaust filter full clean soon.

Are you on the diesel particulate filter status screen when you see this? If yes, that isn't what I would call a message, and is completely normal to see anything from 0%-99% on that screen.

 

Lower right corner, do you have the Auto Regen icon showing it’s OFF? This is OCR (Operator controlled regen) enabled

 

I run this truck OFF unless on long trips. Parked regens do a way better job of cleaning. Auto regens are every 500 miles and my DPF % gauge is 95% full when it starts auto regen. With OCR I can go 700/750 miles before the filter is 100% full and then I can initiate a parked regen when stationary. The miles between the two obviously tell me how good each regen process does for cleaning.

The Ford regen process actually sucks especially with not having OCR. If your truck is factory set, you have no way of knowing, other than instant fuel economy going in the tank, your truck is regening. So if regen starts when at 95% full and you pull in your driveway and it’s cleaned down to 90% full and you shut it off, when you power up the next time, it won’t resume that current regen cycle, it just starts refilling the filter back up until it triggers to start when full again then if you shut it down again when it’s say 85% full same thing. This is why people have issues with modern day diesels, especially the city people that don’t need them but think they are cool. If regens aren’t burned complete, it’s easy to get caught having a DPF on the full side all the time and eventually it can’t burn the filter completely and it will have to be removed and cleaned or replaced. My 2024 at least has the %full gauge from the factory problem is nothing signaling the driver regen is active. I have a Banks iDash that does. When I regen it takes my truck 8 miles from the time Banks shows Regen ON until my Ford % full goes to zero. So without the Banks, when Ford % is zero, one would assume regen is complete right? Nope, it takes another 12 to 15 miles at 70mph for my Banks to switch to Regen OFF and EGT sensor 1 & 4 to start cooling down. All manufacturers have omitted alot of information from instrumentation that we actually need to be able to see and monitor just to keep our trucks healthy with all this BS they are forced to bolt on. The modern day diesel takes some managing but it makes it a helluva alot easier when one can actually see what is actually going on. I’d suggest investing in a Banks iDash. Best money you can spend on a truck accessory

 

I run my truck with the automatic regen turned off. When pulling our rolling house on multiple-hour trips it will clean itself down to zero at interstate highway speeds. And will take a while to start loading up. As an example, we completed a trip from Virginia Beach to FL on 8 March. The DPF is reporting 25% now. We will be taking off on our next trip (to Dallas for the eclipse) in a week and the DPF will clean itself as we head down the road. I don’t know how much fuel I’m saving doing the cleaning this way, but being the cheap ******* I am, I would rather not waste fuel doing a burn when unnecessary based on an odometer reading. Just my 2¢.

 

I am not sure stationary Regens are any better than moving. Burning off is burning off. I have an old Scan Gauge 2 that I use. When the FULL message pops up, I click to Regen when convenient. If I watch the Maintenance Monitor, my Scan Gauge will switch to off when the truck says 5-10% and then finish passively. The factory algorithm is different than the after market gauges, I go by the factory. Never a problem.

 

100 to 150 miles more out of a parked regen is damn sure better to me!!!! 😂😂😂😂

 

It doesn’t matter if it’s a stationary (active) vs. driving (passive) regen - they have different purposes but both accomplish the same task.

The purpose of the passive regen is to keep the soot accumulation from building up to the point of requiring an active regen.

The purpose of the active regen is to clean the DPF if passive regen isn’t completing on its own, leading to excessive accumulation; or, in some cases, for service purposes (such as breaking in a replacement DPF).

I don’t know what the soot load has to be before the passive regen is enabled, but from what I’ve seen on customer vehicles (Ford, GM and heavy trucks) anything over 50% is reason to initiate an active regen (or drive until the passive regen completes).

 

No long idle times. Short trip yesterday (about 40 miles). 320 mile trip the other day at 70-75 mph. I would think the long trip would have burned the soot. I'll hook up the goose neck and go for a drive with a decent grade.
Thanks

 

The long trip, unless towing, wouldn't get it hot enough for passive regen, it would give it the opportunity to active regen when full. Really the only difference between short trips and long unloaded trips is the time it takes for the DPF to get full. Gets full in less miles with less highway use. It isn't necessary to hook up a trailer to initiate a regen. If your DPF is at 95%, an active regen will begin with or without trailer. Once it starts, a 20 minute ride on the highway should burn it down to 0%....even with an unloaded truck.

When the % is increasing, the soot is building up, when the % begins to drop, the soot is burning off. That is normal, and how the system is supposed to operate. It's not a problem unless your use never allows for a regen to occur. Anyone who does any sort of highway driving shouldn't have a problem.

 

From the "book"

A = The regeneration process operates more efficiently when you drive your vehicle at a constant speed above 30 mph (48 km/h) and at a steady engine speed for approximately 20 minutes. The frequency and duration of regeneration fluctuates by how you drive your vehicle, outside air temperature and altitude. For most driving, regeneration frequency varies from 100–500 mi (160–805 km) between occurrences and each occurrence lasts 9–35 minutes. You can usually reduce the duration of regeneration if you maintain a constant speed above 30 mph (48 km/h).

B = If your vehicle is operated with significant stationary operation, low speed drive cycles less than 25 mph (40 km/h), short drive cycles, a drive time is less than 10 - 15 minutes or the vehicle does not fully warm up, passive and active regeneration may not sufficiently clean the diesel particulate filter system. Operator commanded regeneration allows you to manually start regeneration of the diesel particulate filter at idle to clean the filter.

In other words, if you normally drive like "A", let the truck take care of it. If you drive your truck more like "B", go the manual route.

I just drive mine and don't worry about it. If I am pulling into the garage and it goes into regen, I still pull in and shut it down. It will take care of itself the next time or two I take the truck out.

 

I wish this part was true for my 2019. I do monitor my regens and always get on the highway, well above 30 mph, to complete them. It always takes 20+ minutes to complete. 9 minutes would be awesome.

 

I have noticed mine are usually 10-15 minutes. I drank the kool-aid and bought a Banks iDash to keep an eye on it but stopped looking at it about a month or so after I bought it. I use it for monitoring volts but that's about it these days.

 

Is it full to begin with? I have used an app to monitor when it's active or not, but most often just go by the percentage screen in the truck. As long as I've owned this truck (since new), I've never had a regen complete from full down to 0% in less than 20 minutes while driving on the highway. Also never had a regen start before full.