Quote:
Originally Posted by Kev0607
You don't need to drive down a motorway in 3rd gear. Sorry, but that's just silly.
Drive the car as normal at 50mph+ and the car will regenerate itself. It needs to be a long enough journey, at least 20 minutes. There's certainly no need to be driving down the motorway in 3rd gear.
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I would agree that it's silly and unnecessary to drive down a motorway in 3rd gear at 3500-3900 rpms during a regen WHEN everything is functioning properly and as designed.
I know all about 20 minutes and driving requiremets for a regen and I was following most of the regens with CarScanner from the beginning of my ownership.
But, I had a problem. For the whole 1st year and 6200 miles of my V70 ownership everything was fine. But, then the regens started to happen much sooner and much more frequent instead of starting every 620-750 miles or 1200 miles in winter. All that with exactly the same driving style (2 x 18 miles commute 85% on the motorway every day). Regens started to happen at 250 miles (even on a long 200+ miles motorway trip) and the fuel consumption was very high with the engine cold. All that described here:
https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=335709
Changing the O2 sensor did not help and going back to premium Shell V-Power diesel also did not help. No DTCs except a false alert fot O2. All was checked and I was told to do a forced regen.
After realizing how brutal a forced regen is on my model (30 minutes idling at 4000 rpms), I have decided to try to perform a regen in 3rd gear as described.
So, the FACT is that since I've done it on 1 st Nov 2023, some 3200 miles ago, everything works flawlessly. Let me repeat - I had problems for 3 and a half months and about 2100 miles, but after doing the silly thing JUST ONCE everything is OK for the last 5 and a half months and 3200 miles. Some kind of coincidence? What?
Forced regen for my engine model seems much more ridiculous and unpleasant than driving a car on the motorway in 3rd at 3900 rpms at 70 mph while doing the regen.
Last regen I did normally cruising at 2000-2500 rpms in 5th gear. But I believe that a good blast is useful and beneficial from time to time...