Resolved Broken down in Breckenridge....

[FloridaSon]

Freightliner procedure, can’t speak for Spartan.

 

[flarider]

Back in March a few hours after leaving the Mothership I stopped to fuel up. When I started up again I got a DPF error Source 0, SPN 3720 FMI 15 but when I started driving it went away. I figured it was from all the start and stopping going into the service bays and after a few regens it would go away, My 2018 DSDP on Spartan does regens all the time, Spartan said it was nothing to worry about. In May I was at NIRVC in Atlanta and had them look at it. They said they couldn't reproduce it but it happens almost every time you start the engine and goes away when you move or give it some RPMs. They also said they couldn't do anything because their autoclave machine was down. You would have thought they would have cleared the codes but they didn't and they were short staffed and wanted me out of there. I probably would have had to spend another day there just for that. So that was 6 months ago and about 6,000+ miles.

 

[Rich W.]

Neal how did it go today? Any progress?

This wont help much but at least it will verify some things and you’ll know you're not alone:

Diesel Particulate Filter Shutdown - The Good, The Bad and the RV

We got shut down on the side of the road due to our Diesel Particulate Filter causing a "Stop Engine" situation. Six hours and a little over $1500

thegoodthebadandtherv.com

 

[Neal]

Thanks all for those that asked via text, and above. I just arrived at Pagosa Springs with the last hour of this drive after dark, thankful for the nearly full moon but I knew 3 hours prior to arrival I should have stopped somewhere and come here tomorrow. But here is how today went:

• Very grateful the Peak to Peak Truck Repair guy came to me nearly first thing today. Sadly I woke him up at 5:30 AM as their service says 24/7 and I couldn't sleep so I figured I'd put in a call. He said call him at 8 so I did, he arrived at 9:30
• He was a little beaten down, short staffed like everyone and overloaded and mentioned he shouldn't even be here, people have been waiting days for service, but he settled in and got to work and I'm thankful for that
• He connected his laptop and saw the high soot situation. There are FIVE phases of soot level, 1 to 5 (maybe 6 if it's 0 to 5) and I was a 5, fully clogged. He said likely a regen would not fix this and that the dpf filter would need to be removed and replaced or cleaned by baking in a ceramic oven, assuming that meant high heat. But he said let's give it a try
• He had to essentially reset the maintenance system in my coach to get a regen to start and it did and happily the black indicator started working it's way shading towards white meaning clean. It took over an hour.
• He then cleared the codes (again?) and all checked good. Hallelujah!
• He departed, bill was $321 - no big deal and Coach-net pays it. He mentioned towing is a very bad thing for RV's you really want to avoid it and I knew that, it was going to open a can of worms.
• I cranked to move the coach so I could connect the toad and the ABS light was on. I also noticed the steering wheel was very stiff as it felt comfort drive was messed up. In the end comfort drive just needed to reset itself and I called him regarding the ABS, we weren't really sure but he guessed once the wheels turned the sensor would pick up and it did, the ABS light went out.
• I hooked up and was going to head direct Pagosa Springs as he said he is confident in the fix, the system showed clean DPF. I pulled out of the parking lot on my way and sure enough I get the same indicator as yesterday leaving Tiger Run. It was the regen warning light for hot area around aftertreatment, I knew this could be a potential ticking time bomb and if I didn't dive for the forced regen it would give me a red stop engine light again and I knew he wasn't coming back, it would have to be towed. I was approaching Walmart so ducked into their parking lot, sadly no place for RV's but found a safe spot and immediately forced the regen which it worked as the RPM went up, and after 20 minutes it completed and all lights were out.
• At this time had put in a call to TransWest where this tech told me it should go and they said yes, bring it in, they're ready which is great (that's in Denver).
• I put their address in my GPS and headed their way, I figured at least I'd cut down tow distance. With construction and then a tunnel I was just waiting for a terrible situation but it never happened.
• I then figured Pagosa Springs was going to be too late showing a 7-8'ish arrival so I put in Cherry Creek State Park in Aurora, CO in the GPS and headed that way. I then was feeling good energy so turned south on I-25 and figured at least get to C Springs, then Pueblo, then decided after a fuel/dinner stop to continue on. While it worked out I shouldn't have gone the full way, but I'm here.

In talking with the tech he did recommend frequent manual regens, it can't hurt. We also discussed the higher altitude and how regens may not be as effective higher up as there is a trend of problems like this at higher elevations. I will have to ask FL during my service if there is a way to find out if my system is in fact auto-regen'ing and if that's not working it could contribute. But anyways I learned a valuable lesson:

IF YOU'VE NEVER FORCED A REGEN - YOU SHOULD DO SO!! It is a good procedure to learn, each coach is different, and you can't harm anything by doing it but you can certainly be setup for harm by NOT doing it. I will be doing it coming out storage and when I feel the time is opportune. Again, it doesn't hurt to do it and it just helps clean the system. If you get in a high soot situation you also risk damaging other (high dollar) items such as the SCR which is after the aftertreatment. Obviously when you do forced regens you should be at ride height to give best separation from the ground for the high heat and do not do it over dried grass or leaves that could catch fire. Know that it can take 20-60+ minutes to complete.

As to the light that came on when I left the parking lot, it could have been indicating temps were still high from the tech's hour long regen, I don't know. But it didn't hurt for me to do the forced regen. The tech did interrupt his after an hour and did not let it complete itself, that could have been an issue as well. Maybe the system needed to get a completion signal?

To those that do the techie data mining of the emissions system such your iPad presentations or whatever. IF YOU CAN READ THE SOOT PHASE that would be gold nugget data to know. If you can find your soot level reading (1 thru 5) that would be valuable to know your need for a regen or not.

Thanks all for the help. I'm very lucky to have gotten through this without a tow and higher service fees. I continue to learn, 5+ years into RVing and I never messed with regens. Now I will.

 

[Rich W.]

Thanks for the thorough report and update. And also for noting that I had the order of DPF and SCR backwards. I have diagrams showing the components and how the system is designed and I’ve replaced the differential pressure sensor on my DPF, but I guess its been a while since I looked at it - my poor feeble mind….

Anyway OTR shows soot level in the DPF as a %, and apparently it can go as high as 130%, whatever that means. I’ll ask OTR about the five levels - maybe thats an Insite thing. And I’ll also see how the Diesel Laptops handheld unit reads it.

Glad you’re back on the road with a minimum if expense and no tow - Thats total success!

 

[Neemer]

$350 sounds like a bargain to me. Good luck onward.

 

[FloridaSon]

Excellent report, glad you found out this info, helps us all.

RE: Forced Regen - do you feel the toad should be disconnected or is there enough separation to dissipate the heat?

Happy you are on the move again Neal, well done.

 

[NWIP]

First glad @Neal your on the move again.

I have a Spartan and was told that you can’t do a forced regen without specific equipment, ie computer/software.
I am arriving at Spartan in Charlotte, MI today and will discuss things more with them. I have a check engine light with key on which will go out after about 20-30 seconds. I have driven approximately 4000 miles this way as it is considered an inactive message from a previous incident and will be reset by Spartan.

Additional note, I run BlueFire which will clear some active faults but not inactive faults.

 

[FLSteve]

@Neal ... thanks for the update. Glad you are at the next stop now. Did you wind up stopping at TransWest? If so, what did they do there?

FLSteve

 

[redbaron]

This tool will do a forced regen on either chassis as well as read and reset most codes. It's not a replacement for OTR, but cheap enough that every coach owner should have it and know how to use it. Ebay sells it for under $140.00.

Amazon has it for under $200

You must get the plus version for forced regen and other emissions reset.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739WS69C/?tag=rvf01-20