Issue with oil particulate in diesel cars. Anyone else have this problem?

[missmillimentscardigan]

Firstly, apologies in advance for my lack of knowledge about cars. We bought a new diesel Discovery Sport in November last year, and my DH was a bit nervous about potential issues with the oil particulate not being able to clear itself unless the car was driven for long distances at high speeds very regularly. However, he was reassured that this wouldn't be an issue if we were taking the car out for at least one longer, faster drive at the weekend, which we do.
We both live very close to where we work so the car is mostly used during the week for the school run - a couple of miles a day on weekdays, and then we tend to use it more at the weekend, when it gets a longer run.
DH has just come back from the Land Rover garage after a service light came on the car, and he's had to have the oil filter changed, as it's not getting enough opportunity to clear itself. Land Rover tried to charge him £200 but he said that was completely unreasonable, so they reluctantly agreed not to charge him.
He asked for specific guidance about how much the car needs driving to clear the particulate and was told it needs be to driven at 50mph for at least 20 mins twice a week. The 50mph needs to be constant for the 20minutes, otherwise the cleaning process is interrupted and won't continue.
This is pretty challenging for us; even on a motorway it's not always easy to drive at 50mph or over for 20 mins. The salesperson told DH that a lot of customers were having this problem with diesel cars. Has anyone else had this problem, and how did you overcome it? I really don't want to change the car, as we've only had it six months and I really like it. Thanks

My next door neighbour friend has a 7 year old diesel Mercedes that has only done 25,000 miles. She has had no problems with the diesel filter. Maybe takes it on the motorway 10 times a year.

I think something is wrong with your car.

I think you’re getting confused about what is wrong with the car. An oil filter filters the engine oil, a diesel particulate filter filters the exhaust gas. You would certainly not have had the particulate filter changed for £200. You may have had a forced regen done or you may have had an engine oil and filter replacement due to diesel contamination caused by failed regen attempts of the DPF. Either way, you’ve got one of the least reliable cars money can buy, do not expect this to be an isolated incident.

Diesel cars are not sensible school run only vehicles because of the DPF. I’ve always had diesels and have always been asked how many miles I do by the dealer when I’ve bought them. They e said they wouldn’t recommend a fielder
To anyone’s who does under 10 because the dpf wont be able to successfully regenerate.

Yes, diesels are generally unsuitable for anyone doing less than 15k miles per year.

I have had this problem with mine. After about 3 years of use, this happened to us. You are supposed to drive them in a low gear doing over 50 mph for 20 mins. We had a diesel car before this and it never gave any probs. I wouldn’t have.m a diesel car again for this reason. I knew nothing about this previously.

I also think that you're getting mixed up. A particulate filter replacement would be closer to £1k if not more from a official dealer than £200.

Tbh, the car doesn't sound suitable for what you're using it for.

Thank you for the advice and apologies for not being completely clear. It was the oil filter and the oil that was changed for approx £200, although we didn't pay for this - the particulate filter wasn't changed, which would cost substantially more. The regeneration was failing so the oil was contaminated by fuel.

It's not a school run only car - it's done 6k miles in 5 months, so not doing a huge amount of miles, but it's our main car, and it does do long runs at least once a week.

It's very frustrating because we specially asked whether this would be an issue, and were told that it wouldn't.

It's the school runs that are doing it. The engine will barely be getting warm; it's not good for any kind of engine. Multiply that 5x a week and I'm not surprised it's thrown a wobbler.

It'd be better to drive it less often but just do those longer runs. Short runs kill engines.

A mile each way to school - could you not walk or cycle? (Genuine question; I don't mean that as pass-agg as it looks.)

I'd love to walk to school but I don't always have time as I need to drop younger dc at nursery further away and then get back to work. We also live quite rurally and there's no footpath and fast traffic.

Thank you for the advice though- i think you're right about the short journeys. Maybe we'll have to change to a petrol...

Buy a petrol is the only real, practical solution.

It is easier to force regens in a manual as you can just run it at the highest revs you safely can in the lowest gear, as long as you’re fully up to temperature etc etc, so it can regen in a 5-10 minute drive instead of a 20-30 minute drive on the right roads.

Hi,
this is a common problem with the discovery sport 2.0 diesel engine

Unless you plan to drastically change your driving style and usage, You need to REJECT the car and return it to the car dealer
If you purchased the car on finance, you must inform the finance company

Your issue is not with Land Rover (even thou its their product) but the supplier (the car dealer) as they are responsible under UK law

I am not a lawyer and cannot give legal advice, but from what you have written, it may be argued you were mis sold the car by the salesperson telling you it would be okay.

There is lots of information about the many problems with the discovery sport on the honest john website - take a look here

www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/land-rover/discovery-sport-2015/?section=good

In terms of your problem, lots of interesting info such as -

According to a July 2017 Service Compliance Notification sent out by Jaguar Land Rover, 16MY and 17MY Discovery Sport (DS) and Range Rover Evoque 2.0L Ingenium Diesel vehicles (EU6b Market) are suffering from premature diesel dilution of the engine oil due to a "higher than expected" number of DPF regeneration cycles. The root cause of the problem lies in hardware and architecture issues ("differences") which were seemingly not addressed when the Ingenium engine was migrated from the Jaguar product line to the Land Rover SUV models. Consequently, DS and Evoque vehicles require a higher amount of post-injection activity in order to achieve the same carbon burn rate, compared to the similar 2.0L diesel when fitted in the XE and XF.

and

Clear explanation received from reader for the Discovery Sport and Evoque Ingenium sump oil contamination issue: "JLR has now admitted to me in writing that the DPF can never get hot enough to enable any passive regeneration to occur in "normal driving". The reason for this is that, unlike the XE/XF where the Ingenium engine is mounted in-line, on the DS and Evoque there's insufficient room between the engine and the bulkhead to fit the DPF. Therefore it had to be positioned horizontally 1 metre further back, downstream of the oxidation catalyst, a position where gas temperatures are too cold for passive regeneration to work at all - you can see the architecture very clearly on this video : / JLR engineers who came to investigate a fault with the EGR on my car said that this design problem explains the longer warm-up period for active regeneration of between 10 and 15 minutes before the HC/PM starts to burn. It then takes a further 15 to 20 minutes to complete the active regeneration giving a total time of up to 35 minutes for the whole process. So 35 minutes of post-injection every 150-200 miles is the real reason why the diesel is diluting so quickly on these vehicles and hence why the service schedule is shot to pieces. Now that this has all been confirmed and corroborated it becomes crystal clear that there is no hope of this problem ever being fixed properly - it is simply too expensive. To cap it all, in their letter JLR finally provided their customised definition of "typical driving style" - one that conveniently fits the performance limitations of the faulty DPF architecture: " 'Typical' driving style as an average across customers is journeys of 15-30 minutes with a speed between 50 km/h and 100 km/h, which includes some drives of over an hour. The exhaust temperature achieved in normal driving is low and as such there is no passive regeneration and soot must be cleared through active regeneration. " Jaguar Land Rover letter, dated 24 October 2017. Do you see why they need to include the bit about "some drives of an hour"? It's because the active regeneration (the only regen that actually works) can't complete within 30 minutes. The effects of the problem, which was originally described by the Service Compliance Notification JLRP00100, can now be fully explained in all its technical detail: it is caused by a design error, plain and simple. Once I had put all the pieces of this together I rejected my car without a moment's hesitation as faulty and not as described and I think that there will be many more doing the same before too long."

and

22-11-2017: Owner successfully rejected Land Rover Discovery Sport Ingenium diesel due to sump oil contamination issue and general unsuitability of the car for repeated short runs from cold.

and

30-3-2018: Report of April 2017 Land Rover Discovery Sport Ingenium diesel needing an engine oil and filter change every 3,300 miles due to oil dilution. Scheduled oil changes remain 21,000 miles (which is ridiculous). Owner being asked to fork out £240 per oil and filter change. Told his driving style is at fault.

Sadly this is a known problem with the Disco Sport along with a number of other Land Rover models using the diesel ingenium engine. It’s a design flaw as revealed in JLR service compliance notice which means that owners require frequent oil and filter changes.

Here in Australia where we do lots of long distance driving the problem still occurs so it is not a factor of simply short trips. JLR blame your driving style and just make it difficult for owners to seek redress. They simply ignore there own technical documents showing otherwise.

Stay away from these vehicles. That’s my advice through bitter experience.

If there's an issue with the car, the dealership will fix this and send a bill to JLR UK. The dealer don't pay for the issues. As a result, I'm not surprised they said it will be fine before you purchased the car!

All diesel cars struggle with the Diesel Particulate Filter when you make lots of short journeys. I wouldn't expect it when driving 6k miles in 5 months though - that's quite high mileage.

A £200 oil change, that’s insane. You could do that on your driveway for £40!!

Hi @missmillimentscardigan - we are having this very problem just now with our evoque - what was the outcome of yours? Thanks a lot.

I had this with my disco sport. They spent literally months trying to sort it and replaced the dpf. Luckily had a fantastic dealer and had a new courtesy car while they got to the bottom of it. Their huge discovery? (Ho ho): make sure there is at least quarter of a tank of fuel before you take it for a long run to burn off the filter; less than this and it won’t regenerate. If you can’t help but do short journeys (and really who’s driving who here?) you’re better with a petrol and also my dealer reckons automatics are less prone to it than manuals which I’ve got. Also the premium diesel might be better for it.

Thanks a lot for this @karrwomannghia!

If this is a school run car with low mileage, why not change it and get an electric one ? No problems with range because you're not driving it far. The drive is much better than diesel and it is really quiet. Oh, and no nasty diesel fumes for the children.

Thanks - we’ll definitely change if we can get out of the finance agreement

Cardad wrote, quoting honestjohn:

Clear explanation received from reader for the Discovery Sport and Evoque Ingenium sump oil contamination issue: "JLR has now admitted to me in writing that the DPF can never get hot enough to enable any passive regeneration to occur in "normal driving". The reason for this is that, unlike the XE/XF where the Ingenium engine is mounted in-line, on the DS and Evoque there's insufficient room between the engine and the bulkhead to fit the DPF. Therefore it had to be positioned horizontally 1 metre further back, downstream of the oxidation catalyst, a position where gas temperatures are too cold for passive regeneration to work at all - you can see the architecture very clearly on this video : www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnJMUuwbCCc / JLR engineers who came to investigate a fault with the EGR on my car said that this design problem explains the longer warm-up period for active regeneration of between 10 and 15 minutes before the HC/PM starts to burn. It then takes a further 15 to 20 minutes to complete the active regeneration giving a total time of up to 35 minutes for the whole process. So 35 minutes of post-injection every 150-200 miles is the real reason why the diesel is diluting so quickly on these vehicles and hence why the service schedule is shot to pieces. Now that this has all been confirmed and corroborated it becomes crystal clear that there is no hope of this problem ever being fixed properly - it is simply too expensive. To cap it all, in their letter JLR finally provided their customised definition of "typical driving style" - one that conveniently fits the performance limitations of the faulty DPF architecture: " 'Typical' driving style as an average across customers is journeys of 15-30 minutes with a speed between 50 km/h and 100 km/h, which includes some drives of over an hour. The exhaust temperature achieved in normal driving is low and as such there is no passive regeneration and soot must be cleared through active regeneration. " Jaguar Land Rover letter, dated 24 October 2017. Do you see why they need to include the bit about "some drives of an hour"? It's because the active regeneration (the only regen that actually works) can't complete within 30 minutes. The effects of the problem, which was originally described by the Service Compliance Notification JLRP00100, can now be fully explained in all its technical detail: it is caused by a design error, plain and simple. Once I had put all the pieces of this together I rejected my car without a moment's hesitation as faulty and not as described and I think that there will be many more doing the same before too long."

This explanation has now been confirmed by Jaguar Land Rover in an internal letter sent out to dealers. Read in conjunction with JLRP00100, the leaked service compliance notification from July 2017, this should provide sufficient ammunition to stop any dealer dead in their tracks when they try to play the "it's your driving style" card. If the salesperson didn't ask the customer about the proposed usage of one of these vehicle before it was sold and DPF clogging or short service intervals subsequently occurred, the new document suggests that JLR's qualification procedures weren't applied correctly and therefore the car could have been mis-sold. Applies to Discovery Sport, Evoque and E-Pace diesels.

www.discosportforums.co.uk/download/file.php?id=5997

www.discosportforums.co.uk/download/file.php?id=9522

I've come across this thread with great interest! I have an ingenium engine disco sport and have had no end of problems. Lot of shakes rattles, etc. but recently (about 3 months ago) did suffer this issue and had to have an oil change and new filter fitted. Cost a fortune.

When we bought the car, we were never told about the short run and DPF issues. We were never asked about what we would be using it for. None of that. We bought the car new in Sep 2015. Do I still have grounds to get resource or reject the car on or is there a statue of limitations period involved here. Incredibly, I was told that this had happened before, but that this was sorted out as part of one of my services without a problem - I wasn't told about that so again, I had no idea this was happening until the DPF light lit up on the dashboard.

Does anyone know whether I have any recourse at all for this? Any help, greatly appreciated. I do add, that I'm not a mum, but a hapless dad....

Thanks!
M.

Regarding diesel dilution and DPF blockages on Discovery Sport, Range Rover Evoque and Jaguar E-Pace 2016-onwards, a technical description of the root causes is available as a downloadable pdf. Expands the information from JLR's leaked documents and corrects some untruths, such as "stopping the car during a regen causes dilution". Essential reading if you think you may have been mis-sold one of these cars - i.e. it was "not as described" - or are considering rejection because the car is "not of satisfactory quality" within the meaning of the Consumer Rights At 2015.

www.dropbox.com/s/d0bcrd7sve4l598/D8_Dilution_Explained.pdf?dl=1

The onus to prove that a fault existed at the time of manufacture lies with the customer if problems began after six months. Not only was there a systemic fault from 2015 onwards, but in this case the manufacturer must have been aware of it.

There was a similar problem, I still could not find a solution, but I can advise you to contact the guys who recycle old cars, for example, junkcarsus.com/ or the car services that are responsible for repairing such old cars, there you can Learn more about the question. In any case, it is best to contact the person who works with it for sure.

I think it would be difficult to get the dealer to admit anything, but its worth a try.
Its common with many brands the DPF needs high temps etc to regenerate, when we had a Disco we kept it for best and did the school etc in a little Fiat as it actually was cheaper to run both cars.
We now have an Old Range Rover with no DPF it's slower than a snail but what comfort, again only used for best.
We bought a Diesel Golf a few years ago and I am sure the sales man made us sign to say he had explained about short journeys.
The thing with most Land Rovers is the running costs are higher, we only have ours as we fix it our selves or have mates who can other wise we couldn't afford to run it.