I have a skoda with the 1.9tdi engine and it is a great engine with no DPF. My car is a bit light to tow anything big ( roomster) but my mum has a vw passat and my brother a vw sharan both have the same engine but with different amounts of hp, and they both tow caravans with no issues.
All depends on how much you want to spend ?
Just googleing DPF problems in the uk and actually car forums state the same as already posted on here, the issues are with the way a car is driven, rather than a particular make.
One thing which was interesting was Kia, Ford, BMW and Audi/WV/Skoda cars had very few reported issues.
The most appear from Mazda, mostly a lot of those regarding the diesel in the engine oil.
DPFs have also been fitted to a lot of cars for the last 10+ years, so it's strange the problem has only just started!?!
well i think i have found a towcar, i was put off the mazda by this forum (rightly or wrongly) but went to my second choice of vaulxwagon passat, 1.9 tdi estate tow bar fitted 1999 model, going to get it on saturday, hope its allright, got years mot and 5 months tax, but only a 110 bhp, assured by present owner that its got bags of power
------------- you are only as old as the woman you feel.
following on about the dpf fitted on cars, i had a problem wth a peugeot 106 hdi, as we were only using it on short trips apart from towing the caravan which it was brilliant, anyway it kept blocking up, and had to take it to an independant peugeot garage who charged me £300 to unblock it, there is a permanant cure for this, and it means knocking all of the internals out the dpf and having the ecu remapped and no more problems, well not with the dpf
------------- you are only as old as the woman you feel.
Quote: Originally posted by petra8315 on 18/4/2013
following on about the dpf fitted on cars, i had a problem wth a peugeot 106 hdi, as we were only using it on short trips apart from towing the caravan which it was brilliant, anyway it kept blocking up, and had to take it to an independant peugeot garage who charged me £300 to unblock it, there is a permanant cure for this, and it means knocking all of the internals out the dpf and having the ecu remapped and no more problems, well not with the dpf
Quote: Originally posted by petra8315 on 18/4/2013following on about the dpf fitted on cars, i had a problem wth a peugeot 106 hdi, as we were only using it on short trips apart from towing the caravan which it was brilliant, anyway it kept blocking up, and had to take it to an independant peugeot garage who charged me £300 to unblock it, there is a permanant cure for this, and it means knocking all of the internals out the dpf and having the ecu remapped and no more problems, well not with the dpf
That cure is likely to become an MOT fail.
No, they only look at the outside of the DPF to see if its there!
Must have the EU mapped if you take the insides out though.
bought the vw passat, on saturday, and seems fine drove home from grimsby, (98 miles ), going to try cvaravan out for a short run tomorrow, but i think it should have enough power, its a 1.9tdi red eye, wich denotes a higher powered model and according to the owners manual is a 110 wich ecuates to 150bhp
------------- you are only as old as the woman you feel.
DPf is more too do with specific engines than manufacturers, for instance the 1.6hdi is found in a wide variety of cars (ford,volvo,citroen,peugot) and its terrible. Ford claim to have fixed the problem by rerouting oil feed pipes circa 2006 but still having problems.
and yes they have been around for ten years but now that diesels are more common quel surprise the problems are too.
there have been quite a few turbo faults on the GM diesel 1.9 or 2.2 try googling the saab and even some of the passats with the same engine all caused by soot build up in the actual engine after dpf problems (which you would not even realize are there till its too late!)the renault/nissan made diesel engines seem to be the most reliable tbh! unless you can afford a high end german bmw/merc or audi
I also think fitting stop/start to some of these new diesels is absolutely insane!
for me i wouldn't touch one again unless my circumstances changed and i did a good run of 50+ miles per day.
purely because stop start adds to the carbon build up problems these cars experience. they don't like short journeys where they are constantly battling to come up to a 'warm' running temperature.
The stop start mechanism does not operate until the engine is at its normal running temperature.
After a very early problem with a new design of engine which was cured by a software change I've never had a problem with the DPF/and or stop start mechanism.
exactly so stop start will then cool down the engine then reheat it.
its not the temperature its operating at its the fact that it will be constantly cooling heating admittedly not as much as several short journeys but its been proven that these engines do not like operating in that way.