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Regens after a month of ownership...

mcjeff

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Edit: Since I was asked, a “regen” is when your diesel ride burns soot off of the diesel particulate filter, or the “DPF.” Sometimes you’ll hear it called an “exhaust system cleaning.” It fills up over time and needs to be burned clean.

Edit #2: These things love long rides. I hit the expressway in Pittsburgh at 79% yesterday, and without a regen, I got off the expressway in Buffalo at 22%. Also, when I hit 800 miles between regens, it started one anyway.. even though I was only at 40% or so. Apparently they do that.

Edit #3: Your DPF and SCR system are mostly independent. While a regen may increase DEF usage, the two are mostly independent, each addressing different emissions measurements. Thus terms like “DEF regen” mix two concepts. Deleting an SCR system leaves your regen’er totally intact.

I'm now on my second JL. The first one was a 2020JLUR Pentastar that wound up having some transmission issues Jeep was never able to figure out. Thus, they offered me a discount on a new one and I ended up getting more than I paid for it on trade-in. The dealer was aware of the issue. I had originally wanted to go with the diesel, but elected not to because exhaust and regeneration requirements scared me off.

So when I ordered the replacement, I went with a JLUR diesel (14 week wait). I've had it for about a month now, so I wanted to share a few things I've noticed. If I had understood this better when I ordered my 2020 I certainly would have gone with the diesel. I obviously can’t speak to longevity or anything like that at this point! Maybe this will help someone on diesel fence decide either way.

My driving habits have actually changed since I ordered it. I used to have a ~14 mile drive to work, with more than half of that being speed-limit expressway. Now I work from home, and only elect to go in about once per week. Most of my driving is thus short suburban outings, except for that one drive to work and a lot of surface road riding on the weekend as I like to get out and explore (and I have kids to tote around).

One last thing - I can’t imagine owning this thing without a ScanGauge II installed. It makes understanding what’s going on, and planning against it, so much easier. I have mine set up to show me the distance since the last regen, withether regen is active, DPF soot mass, and turbo temperature.

Okay, all of that background aside, here are the things I think I’ve figured out in the first month or so of owning this thing.

When the soot mass hits 80% the wrangler will start an active regen. This doesn’t mean it displays a message on the dash, and unless you watch your instantaneous MPG or the RPMs at idle, you would have no idea this was occurring. It will stop on it’s own when it gets to 8%.

Regens do not require highway driving. I was Internet-convinced that I would have to jump on an expressway and drive for 30 minutes in order to clean out the DPF. Nope, not at all. It turns out that when it kicks on, it takes about 10 minutes and I can just go the long way home to let it finish. It will continue to run through stop lights, and even while you’re in “P” or “R” for a couple of minutes. Though if you stay in either of those states for too long, it will stop and pick up again when it gets back to 80%. This could be only a few minutes (if you interrupt it near the threshold), or days if it has sufficiently burned clean. The process will also happen off-road, with the Jeep in 4WD (hi or low).

Highway driving can “passively” drop DPF soot mass. I can certainly see why these are better mated to expressways. When I get up to 55-65+ MPH, the load will drop about 1% for every 15 or so miles of at-speed driving. It’s certainly happy here, but that’s usually negated pretty quickly by the surface road driving needed to get to-and-from the expressway. You’ll certainly have fewer regens overall (and thus likely a longer-lived DPF) if you’re highway driving often. I kind of view highway driving as "free driving", since it doesn't seem to increase soot load. I've not had it drop on its own on backroads.

I find it runs an active regen about once a week for me. That equates to about 3-4 miles for every percentage point of DPF soot load, adjusting for the type of driving I do that week.

Interrupting it isn’t the most awful thing. Well, as long as it gets a chance to sufficiently burn clean. If I were to stop it when it had gotten down to about 30%, it would just rebuild to 80%. If I were to stop it at 79%, it would pass the active regen threshold of 80% and continue to climb because the Jeep wouldn’t yet be up to temperature to run. This is how you wind up with the “Continue driving” console message. My guess is that most people will interrupt it, and as long as it sufficiently progresses, they’ll never have a problem.

Short drives aren’t the most awful thing. But -- you need to drive long enough for it to get to temperature and sufficiently burn down once it starts. The Jeep takes about 10 minutes of driving to get to temperature and 10 minutes to regen. It seems there’s this bad spot you can get into where you “hover” around 80% DPF soot mass, but never drive enough to get to temperature and burn clean enough.

It does smell during a regen! During normal driving, there’s no diesel exhaust smell. During a regen, there’s certainly a noticable acrid burning smell to it. My six year old asked, “why does the Jeep smell like a hot grill?” one time when I stopped it early to figure out what might happen.

There is a difference between forced, active, and passive regeneration. A "passive" isn't really a regeneration, it's just your rig getting hot enough to naturally burn off soot. There's "active", which is the process I'm talking about here. The message you'll see is the Jeep telling you to complete an active regeneration because you're in that high range. Finally, there's a forced regeneration, but if I understand correctly, only the dealer can trigger that and you've probably ignored messages leading up to this. You can have the first two processes happening and never even know it.

After all of that, I find that I can easily plan around regens since the ScanGuage II tells me what the current soot mass load is. Thus, if I turn it off and it’s above 75%, I’ll add an extra 10-15 minutes to wherever I’m going next and let it finish by itself. If I can’t afford to do that, I’ll let it burn down sufficiently far such that I know it can get to temperature before the 80% threshold during my next drive, when I can plan for it.

All in all, it seems fine as long as you don’t get stuck in that “always just around 80%”, which is when the message starts popping up and it will force you to complete one by continuing to drive. I realize that’s a long post, but in practice? It’s really just knowing I’ve got to set aside an extra 15m once a week when it’s getting close.

Oh, and get a ScanGuage II! I can't imagine having no visibility into the process. That little gadget makes it so much more manageable for me as I'm someone that likes to know the numbers and details.

Added From Replies:
@Wrangler man's pro tip: keep your DEF full if you're going off-road, otherwise you'll get inaccurate warning lights due to being off-center.

@Capricorn‘s pro tip: regens also trigger between 750 and 800 miles, independent of soot level. [mcjeff: I never go that long between; mine average about every 200 miles].

[Quick trivia: My Jeep image below was taken in the cemetery where the original Night of the Living Dead was filmed.]

Jeep Wrangler JL Regens after a month of ownership... jee


Jeep Wrangler JL Regens after a month of ownership... regen_before


Jeep Wrangler JL Regens after a month of ownership... regen_durin


Jeep Wrangler JL Regens after a month of ownership... regen_off
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GtX

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Pretty much what we figured out when we brought them home in early 2020.
 
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mcjeff

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Pretty much what we figured out when we brought them home in early 2020.
If I had known this I would have just went diesel originally. :( Forum fear kinda scared me away from it. I was hoping that jamming it all in once place might be useful to someone else down the road.
 

Wrangler man

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I'm now on my second JL. The first one was a 2020JLUR Pentastar that wound up having some transmission issues Jeep was never able to figure out. Thus, they offered me a discount on a new one and I ended up getting more than I paid for it on trade-in. The dealer was aware of the issue. I had originally wanted to go with the diesel, but elected not to because exhaust and regeneration requirements scared me off.

So when I ordered the replacement, I went with a JLUR diesel (14 week wait). I've had it for about a month now, so I wanted to share a few things I've noticed. If I had understood this better when I ordered my 2020 I certainly would have gone with the diesel. I obviously can’t speak to longevity or anything like that at this point! Maybe this will help someone on diesel fence decide either way.

My driving habits have actually changed since I ordered it. I used to have a ~14 mile drive to work, with more than half of that being speed-limit expressway. Now I work from home, and only elect to go in about once per week. Most of my driving is thus short suburban outings, except for that one drive to work and a lot of surface road riding on the weekend as I like to get out and explore (and I have kids to tote around).

One last thing - I can’t imagine owning this thing without a ScanGauge II installed. It makes understanding what’s going on, and planning against it, so much easier. I have mine set up to show me the distance since the last regen, withether regen is active, DPF soot mass, and turbo temperature.

Okay, all of that background aside, here are the things I think I’ve figured out in the first month or so of owning this thing.

When the soot mass hits 80% the wrangler will start an active regen. This doesn’t mean it displays a message on the dash, and unless you watch your instantaneous MPG or the RPMs at idle, you would have no idea this was occurring. It will stop on it’s own when it gets to 8%.

Regens do not require highway driving. I was Internet-convinced that I would have to jump on an expressway and drive for 30 minutes in order to clean out the DPF. Nope, not at all. It turns out that when it kicks on, it takes about 10 minutes and I can just go the long way home to let it finish. It will continue to run through stop lights, and even while you’re in “P” or “R” for a couple of minutes. Though if you stay in either of those states for too long, it will stop and pick up again when it gets back to 80%. This could be only a few minutes (if you interrupt it near the threshold), or days if it has sufficiently burned clean.

Highway driving can “passively” drop DPF soot mass. I can certainly see why these are better mated to expressways. When I get up to 55-65+ MPH, the load will drop about 1% for every 15 or so miles of at-speed driving. It’s certainly happy here, but that’s usually negated pretty quickly by the surface road driving needed to get to-and-from the expressway. You’ll certainly have fewer regens overall (and thus likely a longer-lived DPF) if you’re highway driving often. I kind of view highway driving as "free driving", since it doesn't seem to increase soot load. I've not had it drop on its own on backroads.

I find it runs an active regen about once a week for me. That equates to about 3-4 miles for every percentage point of DPF soot load, adjusting for the type of driving I do that week.

Interrupting it isn’t the most awful thing. Well, as long as it gets a chance to sufficiently burn clean. If I were to stop it when it had gotten down to about 30%, it would just rebuild to 80%. If I were to stop it at 79%, it would pass the active regen threshold of 80% and continue to climb because the Jeep wouldn’t yet be up to temperature to run. This is how you wind up with the “Continue driving” console message. My guess is that most people will interrupt it, and as long as it sufficiently progresses, they’ll never have a problem.

Short drives aren’t the most awful thing. But -- you need to drive long enough for it to get to temperature and sufficiently burn down once it starts. The Jeep takes about 10 minutes of driving to get to temperature and 10 minutes to regen. It seems there’s this bad spot you can get into where you “hover” around 80% DPF soot mass, but never drive enough to get to temperature and burn clean enough.

It does smell during a regen! During normal driving, there’s no diesel exhaust smell. During a regen, there’s certainly a noticable acrid burning smell to it. My six year old asked, “why does the Jeep smell like a hot grill?” one time when I stopped it early to figure out what might happen.

After all of that, I find that I can easily plan around regens since the ScanGuage II tells me what the current soot mass load is. Thus, if I turn it off and it’s above 75%, I’ll add an extra 10-15 minutes to wherever I’m going next and let it finish by itself. If I can’t afford to do that, I’ll let it burn down sufficiently far such that I know it can get to temperature before the 80% threshold during my next drive, when I can plan for it.

All in all, it seems fine as long as you don’t get stuck in that “always just around 80%”, which is when the message starts popping up and it will force you to complete one by continuing to drive. I realize that’s a long post, but in practice? It’s really just knowing I’ve got to set aside an extra 15m once a week when it’s getting close.

Oh, and get a ScanGuage II! I can't imagine having no visibility into the process. That little gadget makes it so much more manageable for me as I'm someone that likes to know the numbers and details.

[Quick trivia: My Jeep image below was taken in the cemetery where the original Night of the Living Dead was filmed.]

Jeep Wrangler JL Regens after a month of ownership... regen_off


Jeep Wrangler JL Regens after a month of ownership... regen_off


Jeep Wrangler JL Regens after a month of ownership... regen_off


Jeep Wrangler JL Regens after a month of ownership... regen_off
Very informative, very well put, thank you so much! Concur with just about everything you stated.
For me I prefer the Bank's set up. Monitoring with much more parameters and custom settings not to mention #1 customer support.
I did have a full regen occur when coming out of the back country (California forestry road) in 4Hi. I was not paying attention to the bank's gauge. Doing my own spotting that day all my attention was focused on the terrain. So everything occurred occurred between 0 and 15 mpg 5400 Elevation approximately 75゚. I was just pulling off trail, to air up. I caught the smell, the ever so slightly elevated engine idle, and slightly elevated temp near the rear of the JL. Other than that I would not have known. I have had the same experience a few more times since then. So it does happen while wheeling your rig in 4 low or 4 high normal operating temperatures. My BEST advice to any of this, so you will not be distracted and you will be distracted! Distracted by the yellow idiot light on the dash, warning you that you have low def fluid and your engine will cease to restart if you don't fill or add def fluid in the next 100 miles. PITA.
Being off camber unsettles the def level indicator and it will be inaccurate and throw a warning on your dash. Suggestion -top it off each and every time you plan on going wheeling, even if you know you have 500 miles of def left @ 1/4 tank or slightly more. A true nuance or PITA. If you don't want to top it off just throw a spare gallon in the back, and when you get the warning you'll be very pleased you have it.
 

Wrangler man

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If I had known this I would have just went diesel originally. :( Forum fear kinda scared me away from it. I was hoping that jamming it all in once place might be useful to someone else down the road.
Thanks again 👍Well said.
 

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Very informative, very well put, thank you so much! Concur with just about everything you stated.
For me I prefer the Bank's set up. Monitoring with much more parameters and custom settings not to mention #1 customer support.
I did have a full regen occur when coming out of the back country (California forestry road) in 4Hi. I was not paying attention to the bank's gauge. Doing my own spotting that day all my attention was focused on the terrain. So everything occurred occurred between 0 and 15 mpg 5400 Elevation approximately 75゚. I was just pulling off trail, to air up. I caught the smell, the ever so slightly elevated engine idle, and slightly elevated temp near the rear of the JL. Other than that I would not have known. I have had the same experience a few more times since then. So it does happen while wheeling your rig in 4 low or 4 high normal operating temperatures. My BEST advice to any of this, so you will not be distracted and you will be distracted! Distracted by the yellow idiot light on the dash, warning you that you have low def fluid and your engine will cease to restart if you don't fill or add def fluid in the next 100 miles. PITA.
Being off camber unsettles the def level indicator and it will be inaccurate and throw a warning on your dash. Suggestion -top it off each and every time you plan on going wheeling, even if you know you have 500 miles of def left @ 1/4 tank or slightly more. A true nuance or PITA. If you don't want to top it off just throw a spare gallon in the back, and when you get the warning you'll be very pleased you have it.
Oh I didn’t even think about 4 hi/lo! I haven’t gone with this one yet. I’ll add that to the top post so it’s consolidated. Thanks!
 

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I want to use a scan gauge, or a data monster, but I also want to use my tazer. I was hoping that z automotive would add the features of the scan gauge to the tazer, but so far all I have seen them add is turbo boost. I thought about getting an OBII splitter but have read that it doesn't work because the ECU will only talk to one thing plugged in at a time. Anyone else have this issue?
 

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I agree that a ScanGauge is absolutely necessary. I only wish that the gauge showed the soot levels dropping as it approaches 8%. Mine shows the regen is on, runs for almost exactly ten minutes, and then turns off and displays 8%. So...it goes from 80% to 8% without showing the intervening progress. My only (minor) "complaint".

Driving a diesel without one is akin to driving a manual without a tach.
 

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I want to use a scan gauge, or a data monster, but I also want to use my tazer. I was hoping that z automotive would add the features of the scan gauge to the tazer, but so far all I have seen them add is turbo boost. I thought about getting an OBII splitter but have read that it doesn't work because the ECU will only talk to one thing plugged in at a time. Anyone else have this issue?
My Tazer doesn't connect to the OBII, leaving it free for the ScanGauge. In fact I have a ScanGauge, Tazer, Pedal Commander, and an aftermarket remote starter all peacefully co-existing behind my dash. None of them are competing for the same connection point.
 

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My Tazer doesn't connect to the OBII, leaving it free for the ScanGauge. In fact I have a ScanGauge, Tazer, Pedal Commander, and an aftermarket remote starter all peacefully co-existing behind my dash. None of them are competing for the same connection point.
Where did you connect your tazer?
 

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I agree that a ScanGauge is absolutely necessary. I only wish that the gauge showed the soot levels dropping as it approaches 8%. Mine shows the regen is on, runs for almost exactly ten minutes, and then turns off and displays 8%. So...it goes from 80% to 8% without showing the intervening progress. My only (minor) "complaint".

Driving a diesel without one is akin to driving a manual without a tach.
Mine does that sometimes. I took the pictures during today's regen, and it went smoothly all the way down to 8% for what might be the first time. It will sometimes get to 40% or so and then not change until 8%.

One thing it also does -- from 8 up until about 25 or so after it completes, it will "bounce" a bit back and forth, 11-20, 12-24, 10-22, and so on. By the time it hits 30 or so, that stops and it's smooth up until it regenerates again. I'm not entirely sure if it's a ScanGauge thing, or what the sensors are actually reading.
 
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I still do have tons of questions that I can't find answers to.. things like "when do stations start supplying winterized diesel? How do I know?" I'll update as I figure this stuff out. =)
 

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Has anyone tried one of those cheap Bluetooth OBD scanners and a phone app like TorquePro instead of buying a scangauge or banks?
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