BMW X3 B47 engine DPF regen

[Roley130]

I have never been able to get to the bottom of why and when my 20d X3 does a regen. The local BMW dealer can only give me a vague answer along the lines of 'when it needs one periodically'. However I have seen my car on more than 1 occasion do a regen after a major motorway thrash. eg Went to Gatwick and back from the west country in warm weather and it did a regen the following day ! Most of my driving is motorway as I can go for days without using the car and then do 250 miles. Does anyone have the gen on this ?

[E-bmw]

Unfortunately, I don't think you can accurately predict when it will happen.

The ECU measures the soot quantity & the differential pressure across the DPF and when these reach certain trigger points it realises a regen is required.

It will then trigger a regen the next time the engine conditions are correct to support a regen, as in engine temp, engine revs etc.

[cliffords]

How do you know it's doing a regeneration?
I have two diesel cars have never known.

[E-bmw]

cliffords said:

How do you know it's doing a regeneration?
I have two diesel cars have never known.

Frequently you don't if you are (for instance) driving down the motorway.

[rottenegg]

You can tell when it's doing/done a regen as the tailpipes get scalding hot, otherwise there is no clue on modern BMWs.

On my 2009 Golf CR diesel, I know it's doing a regen because the coolant fans go ballistic and it's like an oven under the hood. But with my 2016 330d, there is absolutely no indication it's doing a regen, other than roasting hot tips, but only nutters like me think to fondle their tailpipes

However, if you get yourself Bimmerlink, it tells you when the last regen was performed, and it seems like on my car at least, it has a scheduled regen every 1000KM. I do 25K a year so the bulk of my regenning is passive. You can also trigger a forced regen with that tool as well iirc, but personally I would just let the algorithms manage it for you.

[hilly10]

My X3 three years old 22k miles mostly local, I do give it a dam good thrashing on the Toll road twice a month. I have driven down Saturday from Santander to Murcia 600 miles so it should have give it a good clean out

[twokcc]

Here's a link to BMWland that gives information abot DPF regeneration requirements, oolant temp, fuel tank min etc.
https://www.bmwland.org.uk/index.php?threads/dread...

4th post down from Adie

Edited by twokcc on Monday 30th September 18:52