Hi Everyone,
I have been a lurker here for over a year but I thought that I would send out my first message toady after our A service. The car has had a couple of hiccups since our purchase last August, a switch on the steering column kept the car from shifting out of park when we were at parent's weekend at RPI when the car had 2000 miles on it. After a tow to the local dealership, they fixed the problem and drove the car to us for delivery 4 hours from their shop.

Next last January we got the first CEL and the dealership tracked down a bad oxygen sensor. We had to wait two weeks for the part, but they provided a nice rental while we waited.

The car now had been great until 200 miles before the A service when the CEL came on again. The dealership said the code was an "ineffective" DPF, but that the car showed clean on all of the diagnostics. They put in a tech report to Germany and within one day I was told to bring the car back in for a DPF replacement. Talking with the service rep I asked him if he had seen this before and he said no. In fact, Germany initially told him to pull the part off of one of the cars on the lot, but eventually found a part in inventory.

I am hoping that this was just a weird coincidence, but since we had also had the oxygen sensor go bad, I asked the service rep if he thought that maybe I was using a poor fuel supply. I always use the Shell station nearest my house. They have a decent price and the turnover seems good. The rep told me that Shell had a good reputation and that fuel probably was not my problem. I am not really looking for answers, but I thought that I would share this with the board. Hopefully the car continues to do well. My wife loves the car and she tends to hold onto them for over 100000 miles.

Very Respectfully,

Jim Miller

 

DPF or diesel particulate filter (had to research that). Is this what the urea is to clean on a regular basis or ?

 

I actually had been doing research on the diesel particulate filter after purchasing a 2010 VW TDI for my daughter. These filters capture the soot generated in burning the fuel. Once the engine senses a programmed pressure difference in the filter a "regenerative" burn occurs in the filter to burn the soot to a fine ash that remains in the filter.

The DPF filter system gets checked in the VW world at 120,000 miles and then every 10,000 miles afterward. I am not certain how often that they are checked on our GLKs, but I do know the dealership was surprised by the CEL code. The system helps the car to meet emission standards.

The service manager at the Mercedes dealership said that he had not seen any problems with any of the DPF systems on a car with only 10,000 miles on it. He suspected that there probably was a defect in the sensor system within the DPF system and that we are probably okay since a new system was installed.

I think that the urea is injected further down the exhaust system to aid in breaking down the NOx emissions.

Hopefully we are now all set.

 

Hi Jim,


13 months and 90,000 km later I have very few problems with my 2013 GLK 250.


I really believe the small hiccups I had were from bad fuel. I also had a clogged air filter because of the calcium dust that is kicked up on winter roads up here.


Biggest problem I had was fuel gelling. I have to put in a small dose of PowerService when temperatures get below -20 Celsius as the fuel is not always -40 rated in all the service stations around here.


Once a partially blocked fuel filter (gelled fuel) had the CEL come on. Another time the engine started then quit when the fuel gelled after 3 minutes of idling. (a hair dryer to the fuel filter fixed that in about 30 minutes).


I wouldn't be concerned with your wife getting +100,000 miles.


Happy motoring!

 

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the input. I know that there is plenty of discussion on the DPF systems on the TDI forum. Some members hate the technology and the high cost of replacing the system on a VW. However, as you read through their arguments you can find people that have gotten over 200,000 miles on the original equipment on their cars.

One of the interesting things being discussed is the possible cleaning of automotive DPF systems. There are a few cleaning services used on the DPF systems on large trucks and many people believe that as more of these systems go into service on cars that ultimately we will have the option of getting our systems cleaned versus replaced at a much smaller cost.

I have not had to use any additives down here in New Hampshire, but then again we do not have to deal with the low temps that you have in Quebec. The people at the dealership just emphasized to me that I wanted to be certain to use a quality diesel fuel that has a good turnover of inventory. Bottom line is that my wife loves the diesel and the torque that is generated by the little four banger. She swears that she is faster off of the line than she was with her Jeep Grand Cherokee V 8. She also enjoys the overall 30 mpg that she consistently gets vs. the 14 mpg that she got with the Jeep. Good to know that she will get to enjoy the car for at least the 165,000 she got out of her Jeep before the frame rusted out.

Very Respectfully,

Jim Miller