Regen revisited

beaverfan

Oregonian
I have a 2010 F-450 and experienced the same problem. In July 2012 went to the Ford dealer about ocassional excessive blue-white smoke from the tail pipe, which would only last for a few seconds. They said they know about this problem and Ford has a fix, which was to replace the coolant core. Problem continued. They ran tests and said I had excessive oil because the truck was manufacturing oil. They spent several days and talks with factory and determined I had a problem with the high-pressure oil pump. They replaced it. Problem continued. They then determined the defective oil pump caused problem with catalitic convertor and it was replaced. All this was covered by warrenty. Problem returned. Ford tech then told me that a little smoke is what these engines do at times. I went to a different dealer. They ran tests and determined that the regen cycle was not being completed. As we have been stationary for the past ten months, most driving occurs in and around town. Tech said computer showed it started regen cycle four times, but motor was turned off before completed. This will cause excessive smoke at times. I was advised to drive it out of town occasionally to work the motor so regen would be complete. As noted by others, the regen message appears and disappears quickly. Tech said when I see smoke manually check system reset to see if its in regen mode. If so, drive it, if not let them know. So far so good.
 

Peteandsharon

Well-known member
Yeah, I also thought about that. But first of all most of my truck's miles are on the highway. My week usually consists of driving the truck 48 miles to the airport on Sunday, leaving it there until Thursday when I return and then driving it around home for the weekend before it's time to hit the airport again. So it gets a very good dose of highway miles. Secondly I'm very meticulous about finishing the regen cycle. It's a standard joke with me and Sharon that it hits regen as I'm close to home on the weekend. Very seldom while I'm driving to the airport. So we usually take a little drive while it finishes regen. That's not 100% true but largely true. And when I've seen the smoke I'd try to think about the regen cycle before. Stopping the regen cycle short was almost universally not involved. I can't prove anything but I really suspect that the reflash that I got almost a year and a half ago changed something besides how it displays the regen message. Before the reflash it never smoked. Since the reflash it has. Who knows. Well, since I got it back from the dealer recently with another reflash it has had one regen with no smoke. I'll try to be optimistic and keep my fingers crossed.
 

scottyb

Well-known member
Funny I should read this now. I just purchased for the company a 2012 Volvo 220 LC Excavator. It is considered a Tier 4(i), "i" being "interim". It requires a re-gen ever so often. It has a overide button that the operator can overide the re-gen. After so many overides, it will go into "shutdown" mode and the re-gen has to be done manually, which involves a service call. When tier 4 is in full effect, practically every diesel engine in the US will require DEF. Just thought you would be interested to know that all segements are having to deal with this.
 

JohnDar

Prolifically Gabby Member
We've got two new fire engines that use the urea. When the regen light comes on, we need to run them on the freeway for 30 miles to get their heads out their tailpipes. Don't get me started on the other headaches.
 

dalspot

Well-known member
When Ford came out with the latest flash in early 2011, it was a bad program. They actually issued a stop to the dealers to not use it any more. We had that flash. Had the white smoke one time. It took us months and two dealers to finally get the truck re-flashed with the updated version. If you had the truck originally flashed around March of '11, that might have been your problem. Hopefully the re-flash fixed it.

. Well, since I got it back from the dealer recently with another reflash it has had one regen with no smoke. I'll try to be optimistic and keep my fingers crossed.

Karen
 
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