Short Journeys

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yorkshireman198

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Mar 15, 2016
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Car
Mercedes C220d AMG Line
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I purchased a new C220d AMG line back in Sept, predominantly for travelling to work and back (50 mile round trip each day - Mon-Thurs). However, the company I work for are now relocating and my journey will only be a 4 mile round trip each day.

Therefore my concern and question is, is this going to cause major problems, in particular with the DPF? Are there any suggestions to counteract this? Would a good run out each weekend make up for the regular short journeys?

Thanks in advance.
 
Your fuel economy is going to drop through the floor, but it'll cost less overall of course.

Just give it a good foot to the floor tune up once or twice a week, and try to get onto the motorway once in a while.
 
Your fuel economy is going to drop through the floor, but it'll cost less overall of course.

Just give it a good foot to the floor tune up once or twice a week, and try to get onto the motorway once in a while.

Agreed, i was in a similar boat 2.5 years ago when i got an MK7 Golf GTD.
I used to do 400+ miles a week, my role changed about 2 week after i got the car and have predominanlty just worked out of HQ. (2.5 miles from home).

On a long trip i'd get 50-60mpg. Going to and from work, the car hadn't heated and i got 35-40mpg.... (Sometimes worse).

Never really had a problem with DPF regens. You'd hear them when parking every month or so, but a quick book down the main road / motorway sorts that out ok.

Just expect a large decrease in MPG as the engine really wont have warmed.
 
Because then a 5 to 10 minute commute takes 30-40 minutes and you're cold and probably wet.
 
At two miles to work, why not walk?

because if you get called out or have a trip (Which happens regularly) - its 2 miles walk back to get the car. (I do ride my bike in on days that i know i wont need it!!) :p
 
Such short runs on a permanent basis aren't really good for the car ... a small petrol engine would be better (they heat up quicker).
 
I do a 7.2 mile round trip commute. In the winter I used to completely block off the radiator in an attempt to get it warm by the time I got there. Even when the coolant is up to temperature that doesn't tell the real story as oil temperature lags behind. I reckon you need to double the miles before the oil is also up to temperature. Without longer trips at weekend it would really be abusing the engine and would call for more frequent oil changes. If you have to do short commutes then the extra oil changes are important to stop sludge building up. I just stopped doing it in the car 9 years ago and ride an air cooled motorcycle to work.
 
short runs are not good for a diesel, . period
 
You will need a good 20 minute run every 2-300 miles in order to allow the DPF to do a regen. And thats a run at 1800+ rpm, not just 20 minutes of running.
 
The engine will effectively be running cold for most of its life; not good. As pointed out earlier, diesels take longer to heat up (they burn less fuel so produce less waste heat), certainly more than two miles. In the winter it will also impact on your heater and demisting.
 
1. As others said, a good 20 minutes motorway run every couple of months will keep the DPF at bay.

2. Mrs. MJ has a Diesel car that does... 1000 miles annually. I take it for a spin every now and then, and I use only Shell V-Power Nitro Diesel (at that type of annual mileage, fuel cost is not really an issue). The car was bought 3 years ago, so far so good.

3. As for increased engine wear.... yes, but to put matters in perspective, this means that engine will give up the ghost at 150,000 miles instead of at 250,000.... so not really your problem, and in fact possibly no one's problem, because in our affluent Western soceity cars depreciate and get thrown away much before they reach the end of their mechanical service life.
 
Having posted my thoughts above, I'll let you into a secret. Since I retired my annual mileage has plummeted to around three or four thousand. I bought my C200 cdi for the motorway mile munching I used to do and very good at it is too. It's an '04 with 122,000 on the clock, so worth about £10 should I want to trade it in. It's reliable and owes me nothing but would cost a lot to replace with a newer model, so I'm keeping it until it costs too much to repair. No, I won't be treating the engine as well as I should as most of my journeys are just a few miles but it's now got to the 'bangernomics' stage. Run it 'till it stops then get another one.
 

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