DPF Filters
 

I am a new member of this forum and need some assistance / advice from those more expert than I in the matter of Diesel Particulate Filters.
I have owned many cars over the year ranging from the Austin Seven I started with through to two Rolls Royces and an XJ8 Jaguar which we used as wedding cars when I was made redundant. When I was employed I had diesel cars for about 20 years and my annual mileage was between 30 and 40000 miles.

Following an accident which wrote off my Mercedes SLK (the brakes failed - my first accident in 50 years) my wife who was injured in the accident wanted me to replace the car with something more substantial. For a number of years I had rather fancied a Volvo so this seemed like a good opportunity to get one.

I purchased a 2010 V50 estate car with 96,000 miles on the clock and a full service history.. Being retired our main use of the car is to take the dogs for a walk. The garage who sold it to me changed the cam belt and put on a new DPF. I had no idea what a DPF was as none of the Diesels I had owned had any such a feature.

All went well for a few weeks when the first indicator light on the information board told me that the soot filter was full and to check the manual. This I did to discover that I needed to drive the car at around 65 miles per hour for at least 30 minutes - i.e. 40 miles. Whilst it was a bit inconvenient as I don't often do those distances these days however the wife took it as an opportunity to visit Ikea which was expensive. But the light cleared only to return again a week later. I spoke to the garage I bought it from but their response was that the car was really not suited to the local driving I was doing, and which I had told them when I was looking at the car. Not particularly helpful.

After 6 months of driving on unnecessary journeys just to keep the DPF happy the car went into limp mode and I took it to the garage. Apparently it required a new DPF although true to say the mechanic looked at it and couldn't really see why, but nonetheless they changed it.

It would seem therefore that either I drive 40 odd miles at 65 miles and hour (which is not that easy on busy roads) once a week, change the DPF two or three times a year or sell the car. I did write to Volvo customer services for advice but the chap there said he was not technically trained so could not give advice and I should contact my local dealer. We don't have a local dealer and when I contacted one in Exeter to ask for assistance he said as I hadn't bought it there they couldn't help me unless I wanted to bring it in for a full service and they would check it as part of that service (which isn't due until August).

Sorry this is a bit long but I wanted to give the whole story. I'm not sure what to do other than sell the car and lose a couple of thousand which is a big hole in the retirement savings. Advice would be appreciated please.