Audi DPF Tip If Flashing glow plug + DPF warning

[JohnLebo]

Hello everyone. I am new to this forum and i hope i can share some valuable information and prevent a fellow Audi owner from spending a fortune for no reason.

I have a 2008 Audi A5 3.0 TDI Quattro. Recently my DPF warning light began to come on and it only got more and more regular and i found that i had to take it for a blip down the motorway every other day. As you can imagine, eventually the dreaded glow plug warning light started to flash and it put itself in limp mode... 

I knew that now my dpf filter was so clogged up that it was surely a replacement job which i have been made aware can cost over £1,000 in bills. However, following some research i found a DPF cleaning specialist who use the very popular Terraclean equipment and were mobile. He ran some diagnostics and found my DPF had nearly 60g of soot and the pressure was between 10 and 13psi! =O. For those of you who do not know, the dpf pressure should not be more than around 3psi upon hard acceleration. The specialists words were "yep, it is f****d". 

He was not phased and got to work immediately. He connected his machine and all the pipes, set up the chemical they use and began blasting it through the dpf system. After 30 minutes a ghastly cloud of smoke and some grimy bubbles came out of the exhaust and the process had finished. At the end he reconnected his diagnostic equipment and the dpf was now reading 15g of soot and between 1 and 2.5psi upon acceleration, pretty much good as new.

This entire process including him coming to my home cost only £250 and my Audi has never ran so beautifully! My word of wisdom here would be; do not run straight to the main dealer for DPF issues as they will simply charge you £1,500 to replace it just for the same issue to occur in another 30,000 miles. Find your local dpf cleaning specialist and have them clean it for you. It takes maximum 1 hour and will save you  a fortune. 

Hope this is of some use to people =].

[Audi Owners Club.]

Hi John

Thanks for sharing this information...its always good to hear personal recommendations especially when its a money saver as well.

Terraclean are a very good company and their treatment process works very well. Not only that but it uses a water based solution so no damaging chemicals used through the engine.

Cheers  Trevor