Well i finally left the van in for problem solving at a garage after many months sticking my head in the sand. I could've jumped on a train but decided to walk to a friends house across the fields this morning listening to the noisy M25 track, as i turned the corner ascenting i'd this pleasant surprise.
I’ve got the same lid and intercom (the one powered by Harmon Kardon), the sound is bloody brilliant, once you play with the settings in the phone app.
Well since you bring that up, -stop start driving in a diesel- how do all the delivery people Amazon/ DPD/ Evri/ Yodel/ Parcel force etc manage it? With few exceptions they all drive turbo diesels, and stop a 100 times a day after 1/4 mile journeys. Surely they would need a new DPF every week!
I received this letter yesterday, what shocking service we now have in the UK, and i'm not in anyway knocking the staff dedication.
The vehicle needs a regular good thrash to get the dpf to regen. 1k each way as mentioned is not much good. Its possible the delivery guys thrash them enough to clean the filters. While I am not personally involved in dpf problems I have seen a lot of diesels used as a second car maybe and doing shortish journeys and 60k miles with blocked dpfs. The trouble is the blockage kills the turbo then you are into serious money.
AFAIK the Mini has an additive located in front of the rear wheel, and it uses this chemical when the car automatically runs the DPF cleaning cycle program. As I mentioned before owners can force this using a scanner themselves, but the garage presumably does it at every service,, especially when asked to by the owner? The diesels /stop start re vans - I really don't see this being possible if the DPF is such a huge issue. But TBH I really don't know. I am going to find out though as I have a diesel MIni. I'm going to call around a few specialist workshops and find out.
When I had an issue on my Vito, the tech explained that the engine had to be at a certain temperature as well as the cat and engine revs at over 2K for a significant amount of time for a burn off to occur ie for me about 100 mile trip home. I don’t recommend giving your car a good thrash but then nor driving it like Miss Daisy, given that you tow I wouldn’t see an issue with the elf due to stop start. It might be that something has changed with the Mini diesels but I don’t recall having to top up an additive but that was pre Adblu.
Interesting info - thanks. My Mini being an '08 is pre Adblu too. The additive is in a bag and is changed/ replaced as per Mini at 125K miles. Mine doesn't stop start. It could have had that option removed under the personal settings I guess. I have spoken to several mechanic folks who all say that the additional wear & tear on the timing chain etc is best avoided and to leave it as it is. No Miss Daisies in my car, but I don't wring its neck within inches of its life either- I have better machines for pure speed. Its fun & nippy, corners very well plus far more comfortable than I expected. I drive it far more than I planned to!
Pull your arms torque, handles & corners extremely well, surprisingly quite a lot of wind protection too and those quad cans make a great noise, but back breaking rock hard suspension and although it looks really comfortable you wouldn't ride it too long without wanting a break. I enjoyed riding it, but certainly wouldn't buy one.
