New DS? Dilemma re oil dilution etc

[Flacko]

Well I have had my petrol DS for 18 months! They certainly sell them here in UK. I do 7000 miles per year and decided the petrol was for me. It has been very good so far - petrol engine is excellent.

[DiscoSportDave]

There are plenty of petrol evoques, and I would imagine the next DS will see plenty of petrol sales once the hybrid tech comes into force ( saw another camouflaged DS hybrid on the commute this evening btw !). For those with low miles who can stomach mid to high 20s mpg then they have their place. For those on PCP type sales they may not be as desirable due to the future vale impacting on the monthly costs, but hybrid should again make that more palatable.

Whether LR have enough hybrid built into the new DS is debatable, it’s a heavy vehicle with plenty of traditional off road values that they probably feel they need to honour.

Whilst I can’t say i’m Too impressed with the 39mpg from my 700 mile old 180TD DS I can console myself that had I bought a petrol I’d probably be getting 28mpg and have worse resale value (in current market)

There’s plenty of bad press for the DS , and rightly so for those early adopters who have discovered it’s not quite the technical marvel it should have been. Dig deep enough on any car related forum and there are plenty of issues to find. Read any mid naughtiest Porsche forum and people say the engines implode, I’ve not had a single fault or jiggle or buzz from mine in 13 years !

[roadster]

Can I add to the suggestions that mileage is not the issue with oil dilution - its your driving style and typical length and speed of journeys. I am doing less than 5000 miles a year and after 20 months no problems yet. I did change oil and filter at the 12 months point as a precaution. I do not use the car for short journeys unless I need to carry large objects or passengers. I use maximum sensible speed on motorways and drive with some spirit on other roads. Which means both speeding up and slowing down according to visibility and potential hazards not dawdling but not being afraid to use throttle and brakes to make progress safely. This is returning just under 37 mpg. Leaving aside the auto gearbox issues the dynamic behaviour of the vehicle does justify the 'Sport' label much better than I expected but if that aspect of driving does not interest you then the DS probably won't suit your driving style.

[Gary s]

Interesting reply roadster, I have had my DS since March and daily drive can be around 80 miles mixed motorway and A roads, not always flat out speed but not dawdling along and to date I think I am noticing when a regen is taking place but seems to complete whilst cruising along and never yet actually stopped the car and got out to hear any frantic ticking noises cooling down or any unusual hot smells which gives me a bit of peace thinking that the regen is happening at a steady 65-70 during the 1 hour plus drive each way. Have driven diesels all my life but this is my first LR and I am aware the design of the exhaust is supposed to be not ideal leading to issues so I am going into this with an open mind but to date car is great and is driven slightly on the harder side which may be helping but only time will tell I suppose

[Ian_S]

The ECU in the diesel DS will be coded to perform an active regeneration based on soot loading or mileage. The mileage limit is 250 miles. I think there may be a minimum fuel requirement as well for an active regen to be able to start.

If you do lots of short journeys then you may well hit the soot loading first, but where the 250 mile counter kicks in is anyone's guess. You could be unlucky and have it start just as your lovely long journey ends

The best gauge for whether or not an active regeneration may be in progress is the stop/start system. The engine will not stop during an active regeneration. Obviously this assumes your stop/start system works regularly.

[VeryDiscoSport]

I am aware the design of the exhaust is supposed to be not ideal leading to issues so I am going into this with an open mind but to date car is great and is driven slightly on the harder side which may be helping but only time will tell I suppose

I believe the highlighted phrase explains why some cars do better than others in this regard. We know from JLR's candid disclosure that during "normal" driving the DOC is ineffective and all the soot has to be collected in the SCRF(DPF) box. This leads to a requirement for more frequent active regeneration events and then, due to the architecture, each regeneration lasts longer which increases the risk of an interruption. The price to be paid for an incomplete regeneration is additional DPF warm up time the next time the engine is started. "More frequent" and "longer" periods of post injection are referred to in the SCN and that, I think, completes the narrative of why it occurs. How it affects ownership of the car depends on driving style - and there are broadly three styles to consider:

1. Driving "hard" reduces the frequency of regeneration events because it lights up the DOC to some extent and therefore less HC/PM arrives to be collected in the SCRF(DPF). Based on an analysis of forum contributions, a pre-N289 car driven in this fashion will reach 12,000+ miles before the diesel dilution reaches the safe level of 6%. For these drivers, an increase to 20,000 miles can be expected before the service message appears once N289 has been loaded.

2. The problem is amplified by calmer driving styles and respect for national speed limits. For this type of driving it doesn't make any difference whether journeys are 45 minutes long or 4 hours long because driving sensibly/economically (what JLR referred to as "normal" or "typical" driving) never lights up the DOC. Ever. With this driving style owners can expect 6,000 to 8,000 miles between pre-N289 oil changes, 10,000 to 14,000 miles after the update.

3. The problem becomes super-critical when journeys are regularly sub-45 minutes. Now the owner will be lucky to make 4,000-5,000 miles between oil changes. But that's not the worst problem - because now the DPF will start to regularly clog with soot and amber/red DPF lights will appear. It will have to be "coaxed" into regenerating. But eventually most of these cars will need a new DPF and so for them N289 assumes all the utility of a chocolate tea-pot.

So how many diesels in each category? Sticking a finger in the air having looked through our various surveys I would say the distribution has a "classic" normal distribution curve - about 10-80-10.

It's clear that 80-90% of drivers have the wrong driving style, just as JLR have been saying.

But is that the driver's fault? Or the manufacturer's ...?

[Ian_S]

Can't agree with some of the above.

You do not need to have a journey time of at least 45 mins to get better than 6,000 to 8,000 miles between oil changes. My journey's are mostly 30 mins in duration and I managed to get around 13,500 miles before hitting 6%.

Driving hard doesn't mean a lack of respect for speed limits. You are allowed the take the car out of automatic mode to increase the engine rev's instead of just pressing the loud pedal harder to achieve the same thing. 7th gear on the 9-speed auto will keep you above 2,000 rpm without destroying fuel economy completely. It also reduces 'lugging' which is especially prevalent in top gear cruising on a motorway and is compounded further if you then only ever gently accelerate to overtake from say 65-70 as the gearbox may not change down. This style of driving can increase soot generation. You can also accelerate more quickly generating load than always accelerating gently (also helps the auto box realise it needs to change down quicker). It's debatable whether getting up to speed quickly and then maintaining speed is better than taking ages to get there in the first place.

[lodgic]

Interesting last few posts, I (crossing fingers) seem to get almost to the 20/21K (post N...update) , with a very mixed driving style , I wonder as mine is manual,if generaly the revs are higher than an auto (i dont like changing straight up to the highest gear as a bit of engine control feels better)

Does anyone know if they have improved the set up on the 2020 model (or the new Evoke as thats now out?

Nick

[Ian_S]

Does anyone know if they have improved the set up on the 2020 model (or the new Evoke as thats now out?

That is the question we all want an answer to... will take some time for it to pan out. There's little excuse though for not sorting it out on the new models!

[Troon]

Anyone experiencing oil dilution warnings on 19MY? 13k miles here on my D180 and still suggesting it'll make 21k.