DPF struggles with my 2021 Ford Aspire diesel

There is no other problem faced till now. Fuel efficiency figures hover around the 21 km/l range.

BHPian swparth18 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hi community,

This is my first post and I would like to share my story with the community and hope that you guys can help provide some solution to DPF warnings.

I own a Ford Aspire diesel with a manufacturing date of 04/2021.

My first DPF clogging error message " Exhaust filter overloaded please drive to clean " was at 2500 km. The vehicle just underwent the service a week before at PPS Ford Domlur, Bangalore for a 2500 km check and there was no item line in the checklist regarding the soot percentage in the exhaust filter!! So it was extremely worrying that it occurred immediately after a service check! In addition, vehicles had done a fair amount of highway runs during this 2500 km. I took the vehicle to the service centre again where they did a software-based regen. However, the warning cropped up again and I had to drive on the highway to clean up the filter. I did this by driving till Kolar on the OMR highway.

After this, the second time the DPF warning cropped up at ~10,500 km. In between these km, I had done a Bangalore- Panvel-Goa trip for around 4500 km and other highway trips around Bangalore. However, immediately after driving 200 km inside the city for office use, I had a level1 warning. This time, due to time constraints, I drove 88 km on the OMR highway till Naraspur and back. However, the cleaning process started quite late and then it stopped because of the barricades and speed breaker where I had to drop my speed and went below the prescribed RPM limit. Following this, this level 2 appeared warning: "Exhaust filter limit reached. Drive to clean now". I took the vehicle to PPS Lalbaug, where the service engineer told me that there was no other option apart from driving it on the highway. I was going to Chennai at the time, so the issue got resolved by driving again on the highway. One of the Ecosport, he also drove to Chennai to clean!

Now, I have almost done a 7000 km round trip from Bangalore-Dharamshala-Bangalore in the last 2 months. But I got the third level 1 warning, followed level 2 warning after driving 300-500 km in and around Dharamshala. This time I got really scared. The nearest service stations are Mandi and Pathankot, both around 150kms from Dharamshala. There is no other solution from ford apart from driving on the highway. How the hell are you going to maintain 4th gear > 2000 rpm with 60-80 km/h in the hills? So I did not drive the vehicle till my return trip.

The pain of BS-VI diesel is that if you drive 300-500 km constantly around 3th-4th gear. you are bound to get DPF clogging. The vehicle is meant only for the highway. Ridiculous that Ford has not come up with a better Exhaust system after 2 years of launching the vehicle. There was no recall/ update from service centres for my VIN number.

Moreover, the PPS dealership said " DPF is a BS-VI "feature"? So I asked them if it is a feature, then why didn't they explain it during the sales. Also, they told me it is written in the owner's manual that driving is the only solution. I asked them if they would provide the owner's manual before sales and or asked them to find a highway near the hills. Also, ford's customer interface wrote this: " The Message appearing on his vehicle is due to DPF regeneration. Installation of DPF is as per ARAI norms and the cleaning process is as per the recommendation to satisfy the BS6 norms."

I asked for confirmation by sending an email to ARAI. I have not received any replies from them.

At least some of the other 1.5 BS-VI diesel, like XUV 300, have a park regen feature.

Apart from DPF issues, the vehicle has no other issues. I have not experienced power loss even at level 2 warnings. Overall fuel efficiency is also around 20-22 km/l till now.

Is there any feasible solution for regular use in the city? Park regen in open space would be really helpful but this is still the release of poisonous gases into the open.

Before buying the vehicle, I didn't know I'll be covering so much highway mileage. I intend to use to regular city drive as well but experience says every 300 km, I will have to take the vehicle to the highway.

Is there any aftermarket kit which can display soot% on the MID?

Also, it is possible to connect with some at Ford, to see if there is a more convenient solution than driving on the highway? As of now, I'm working through the dealership and front-end customer relationship team.

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