Renault Megan’s engine failure warning light

[Trabbs]

I have been working from home since lockdown and my car rarely leaves the drive these days other than short trips to golf club/driving range. Last Thursday I had to drive 180 miles and then returned a few days later. About 10 miles from home I got engine failure warning. I stopped the car and restarted it and the light remained on. I went out of the car and checked for any signs of leaking oil, the temperature gauge was normal. When I got back in car light was off again so I drove home carefully. Drive it yesterday for first time on a short trip and no light again. Done some research and suggestion it may be to do with DPF and I need to do a re gen. Can anyone confirm and, if so, what that means please? TIA

 

[turner brown]

what model megane . could be a ton of things that bring on the management light

 

[Trabbs]

Megane 1.5 Dci

 

[nara]

It could well be a DPF filter problem as this happens in underused diesels. To do a passive DPF regen you need to get out on a motorway and have a good blast up and down for an hour or so. To avoid breaking the speed limit I'd drop down a gear and try to keep the revs high for a while. I know that's heavy on fuel, but it will save you money in the long run.

 

[Trabbs]

Thank you @nara. It’s weird, I was only 10 minutes from home after a near 3 hour drive on M4/5 albeit I wasn’t thrashing engine. I would need to be driving at high revs for a while then? Should just let the wife drive it, she always leaves it out of top gear

 

[Oggiman]

On that engine its recommended above 2k revs for minimum 20 mins to force a regeneration. So your Motorway drive should have surpassed that. Try adding dpf inhibitor to fuel tank. It worked for me. There's a thread on the forum about this.

 

[Trabbs]

Cheers @Oggiman, I guess I will need to take it out for a blast every couple of weeks then, until out of lockdown.

 

[miller1966]

also if you filled up with diesel on the way back just check cap seal

 

[Trabbs]

I filled up about a month ago, still got about 200 miles in the tank.

 

[Oggiman]

Better get it checked rather than assume its the dpf though. A serious dpf or sensor fault would usually also put the engine into limp mode, I.e. you would see a big difference with reduced power engine performance

You got an OBD II reader you can plug into the engine management system?

 

[Trabbs]

No drop off in engine performance. I haven’t got an OBD II reader, are they expensive?

 

[IANB]

No drop off in engine performance. I haven’t got an OBD II reader, are they expensive?

Not expensive mate I bought one for 20 off amazon

 

[Trabbs]

Cheers @IANB I will take a look.

 

[Trabbs]

Quick update. I took the car out and ran it in 4th gear for about 40 minutes at between 2,600 and 3,100 rpm. Oil temperature jumped from 1 bar to 4 bars after about 5 minutes, stayed there for about 10 minutes and then returned to 1 bar. Is that would happen during regen? Will get some fuel additive and make sure I go on a run every now and then if that is the case.