I've had my truck about a year and have put on about 12000 miles and have never noticed it going into regen.

No periods of high idle ( how high does it go?) or any dash messages/lights if they even exist....

Am I just the most clueless driver in the world?

 

I have a 22 and the only reason I know it is going into a regen is because I turned OCR on with Forscan. Now I keep Auto Regen turned off and watch the DPF% gauge build. When it is around 95% I will go for a long drive and turn Auto Regen back on and let it completely regen, then turn it back off and repeat.

Saying that, when it is going through a regen, I can't tell other than watching the gauges. It doesn't sound different, it doesn't smell different, it doesn't drive different. If I watch the real time MPG read out you can see it drop which is a sign, but other than that, I can't tell it.

 

What is OCR? Is this done with a tablet or a laptop? I'm trying to figure this out with my '19 MY.

 

Operator Commanded Regeneration. It was a $250 option when I ordered my truck, however I turned it on for free with Forscan. It simply adds the Auto Regen option in the Advanced Menu that can be checked/unchecked (on/off) and a DPF% screen which simply displays how full the DPF is.

I am not sure if it was an option on the 17-19's, and it was only a paid option for the XL & XLT trims in the 20-22MY's. However, for the 20-22 MY's you can use Forscan to turn it on for all trim levels.

 

depends on your trim level.
On my king ranch, I used forescan to turn on the dpf % screen and the screen to turn off auto regen.

 

I took a road trip of 400+ miles each way last week, plus driving around once I got there. If my truck ran a regen, I did not notice it.

 

My dealer turned mine on for free.......2022 Lariat

 

My current truck (2022) regens less frequently than any of my previous trucks.

There is no way to tell unless you enable the DPF % screen; when it hits 100% then starts dropping, a regen is taking place. When I am towing, my DPF % seldom climbs above 0%; guess that is passive regen taking place. When not towing, DPF % will start increasing. Even with DPF at 0%, i think the truck regens every so often (500 miles?); read that somewhere. It would be nice if Ford would provide a regen message so I could keep going; I don't like to stop in the middle of a regen.

Some say you can watch fuel mileage, but, since I don't watch it anyway, how would I know what is abnormal.

 

If you can view the DPF% you should also be able to turn the Auto Regen on/off. So just keep it turned off, and when you hit 100% DPF you can turn it back on, take a longer drive until it hits 0%, and then turn it back off until it has 100% again. This way you won't have to worry about stopping a regen in the middle of one. And of course another option is to get something like the iDash and you can watch the regen status, as well as the temps of all 4 EGT's, amongst other things.

 

If I'm driving around not towing (seldom), and see the % getting high, I do this. That is the only time my DPF % increases.

No idea about the "mileage commanded" regens or even if there is such a thing. Does turning auto regen off stop "mileage commanded" regens? I don't know, but I don't think I would want it to.

I'm becoming more comfortable with letting the truck handle regens.

 

The truck likes to regen every 500 miles. I use ‘Trip 2’ to keep track of regens. When one is completed I reset it. I’ve noticed driving around unloaded my filter screen shows 60-65% at 500 miles and then I turn back on auto regens and let the truck do its thing. My thought is that new 23+ trucks seem to regen more frequently and keep the filter cleaner. I’m thinking it’s better off to not let it get to 100% if I can avoid it.

 

Yeah, when towing, my DPF% will roll back until I stop towing, or until it hits 0%, and then it will stay there until I stop towing. I just drove 2500+ miles across the country towing our camper and the DPF% stayed at 0% the entire time. Now that I have been driving around unloaded it has started to creep back up again. That's the way it works, and why towing with the trucks are likely the best thing for them! It keeps the DPF cleaner.

Anyway, yes, if Auto Regen is left on the truck will go into an Auto Regen at every 500 miles, regardless of the DPF%. Even if it is at 0%, it will still go into an Auto Regen, and in my experience, it will still last about 16-18 miles. (Note that trucks without the OCR feature enabled are defaulted to On, so they will auto regen at every 500 miles.) But, if you turn Auto Regen off then the truck will not Auto Regen no matter how many miles you travel. As an example, I left Auto Regen turned off for my entire trip and it never auto regened (of course due to high temps the whole time it was always in a passive regen) . However, I do like to turn it back on when I am almost done with the trip just to let the truck go ahead and do the Auto Regen so it is happy. It really doesn't use much extra fuel when towing anyway...

Which leads me to say, if you are doing a lot of towing, I probably wouldn't worry about ever turning it off. It would still regen at every 500 miles, but even if you shut it off in the middle of one, you will likely still be at 0%. (I will also add here that I like to watch my EGT temps and especially when towing, and I always let EGT 1 cool down to 400F before shutting the engine off.) And even if you are doing a lot of long drives unloaded, I wouldn't necessarily worry too much about it either, however, since DPF% does climb when driving unloaded, I would still like to know the DPF% for no other reason than I would still want the Auto Regen to complete before shutting it off.

 

I use Forscan to see when my EGT’s have cooled down before I shut down. On my 2015, I’ve hated that there is no indication when a regen is completed. I had hoped by 2023 to 2026 there would be an improvement. How are you seeing the EGT 1 temps?

 

Still rocking my 16 and a Banks iDash solves that problem.

 

Banks sure are proud of their iDash!