Smockington, Leicestershire: Mobile DPF Cleaning
Treating the DPF is done at the vehicle, not at a body shop. A technician arrives at your door in Smockington, cleans the diesel particulate filter while it is fitted to the car, performs a DPF regeneration, and you keep the filter you started with.
Allow for the visit taking typically around 2 hours. The clean starts from £299, settled over the phone before anyone travels.
Most people find us with the light already on, and the motor short of power. That is the situation this page is meant for.
What to try when the DPF light shows
Not the unit, necessarily. Main thing to note. Treatment is not where a visit starts. A check is — plenty of faults appear as the same light.
It tells what you manage with the motor between now and the visit.
- A long even run may even now manage it, provided the light is amber and the vehicle goes as normal. Costs nothing at all, so attempt that before calling.
- A drive will not reach it now — limp mode means that window has by then shut.
- A diesel smell in there, or black smoke under acceleration, is the point to stop booking long drives and ring.
The car has been telling you already
Last news, the light. The symptoms usually mount for some time before it arrives:
- dropping away on power, above all uphill
- the revs no longer rise the way they always did
- fuel consumption turning worse
- stop/start quietly packing in
- diesel in the car, or smoke on the way up through the gearbox
That is not conclusive on its own. Next to the light alongside them, the filter is a fair guess.
What clogs diesel particulate filters around Smockington
Being a rural hamlet, Smockington produces precisely the use a DPF handles least well. None of it lasts long enough or is hot enough for the filter to complete a regeneration: the school run to Burbage Junior School, Smockington Lane crawling at half eight, a few minutes to Tesco, the hop to Hinckley. Soot that should burn away builds up instead.
The M69 sits under 3 miles from Smockington, Coventry under 10 miles away, and unless something pulls you out that way routinely, entire weeks slip past without the sustained run that empties a unit. Geography does not assist.
Why limp mode blocks a DPF regeneration
It is self-preservation: that is all limp mode amounts to. The real catch is that a proper drive works by starting a regeneration, and in limp mode the revs will not rise and power is limited.
The standard advice — run it up the motorway — is good, until it is not. Once the car is in limp mode you are the far side of that point, and the filter requires a clean rather than more driving.
Where the motor stands is where the DPF is treated across Smockington
On your driveway, in a work car park, wherever the car can wait for a couple of hours: the job is done with the filter still fixed on, which is the detail most drivers do not see coming.
Nothing is touched until other faults are eliminated. That requires a scan first: running data off the ECU, soot load by proportion and by mass, and a look over of the sensor readings, glow plugs and associated components.
A cleaning fluid next is fed in through the access point on that car, spreading inside the filter to loosen soot and ash a regeneration by itself will never move. A second pass is sometimes called for on severely blocked filters.
Then a regeneration, to clear what the clean has loosened. Either it runs as a monitored drive out of Smockington, with you along, or it goes where the car sits and the real-time data is checked after.
Finally the scan runs again — the change proven, the light cleared, anything still showing written down. Both read-outs reach you by email, so the numbers are recorded.
What a DPF clean will not touch
One thing is what cleaning fixes — a filter blocked with soot and ash. It does no good for:
- a pressure or temperature sensor flagging a blockage that is not there
- the EGR valve stuck open
- a failure in the AdBlue system
- glow plugs or injectors preventing the regeneration completing in the first place
- a turbo putting oil through the filter
Which is why the check happens first. If one of those proves the fault, you hear about it at the outset rather than once the money has changed hands already.
Two things more worth knowing. Getting the filter hollowed out is not a solution — a vehicle without a working DPF cannot pass its MOT and driving it is an offence. And cleaning is sometimes searched for as DPF renewal: nothing is replaced, your existing filter is cleaned in place and put back into use.
DPF cleaning charges in Smockington
A call-out charge holds whatever follows, and takes in the visit, the booking fee, the scan and the advice offered. Cleaning itself starts from £299.
Naming a flat rate would not be straight. We agree it on the phone, once the motor and its expected needs are clear. What you own and where you are both move it: Smockington itself, over at Leicester Grange, or otherwise out across the LE postcode area.
If the scan rules a clean out, there is no charge to pay for it. What even so stands is the call-out charge, since the visit took place, the diagnostic was carried out and the advice was offered.
A 30-day warranty covers aftercare on the clean, and that includes an engineer heading back out to Smockington if the light returns inside the window.
The service was very prompt, courteous and efficient, and the car is now running better than it has for ages. The engineer, Liam, was professional and very helpful, filling me in on the details of what was done clearly and concisely. I can thoroughly recommend the company.
Great service, did exactly what they said and explained the whole process and handled any concerns we had regarding the product, cars been great since highly recommend as a cheaper alternative to replacement.
The DPF Fixer technician was prompt, thorough and professional, and most importantly, 3 days later my car passed its MOT (having previously failed on emissions) - we could not be happier!
What we clean, and how far we go near Smockington
Private cars, vans and light commercials, HGVs, construction and plant machinery, agricultural machinery — the one call-out service across all of them, and on all of them the filter is done where it sits rather than taken anywhere.
Smockington is seldom a special trip: technicians are working Smockington Lane nearly every week, and the same run takes in Leicester Grange, High Cross and the places out past Aston Flamville. It is the diary, not the distance, that settles whether it is one day or the next, and coverage reaches UK-wide — so phone anyway from further out through Leicestershire.
A word on Smockington
Smockington is a small hamlet situated on the riverside in Leicestershire, with an elevation of 121 metres. Smockington lies near several other rural settlements, including Wigston Parva and Copston Magna, and is within commuting distance of Coventry. Smockington has a population of around 618 people, predominantly living in detached houses. Smockington is located in the East Midlands region, approximately 85.8 miles from London.
What Smockington drivers want to know about DPF cleaning
- Will a long drive clear it?
- Quickly enough, and with the motor out of limp mode, yes — sometimes. It takes a sustained run at motorway speed, not fifteen minutes or so to Tesco and back.
- Does the visit take long?
- That is typically around 2 hours, though a heavily loaded filter can need cleaning twice, which runs on.
- In Smockington, what does it cost?
- Cleaning starts from £299, and the call-out charge on top pays for the visit, the diagnostic and the advice. Settling it is done by phone, since what you run and where you sit both shift the number.
- Do I have to be present?
- A spot for the motor to sit, for a couple of hours, is all that is needed. Not you. If you would rather come along, the regeneration can be done as a supervised drive instead.
- How soon can someone get to Smockington?
- That comes down to the schedule, but it is often same-day or next-day. One call to 0303 330 1830 and you will know what the LE area has free.
- Does the filter come away from the motor?
- On the call-out service, no: the filter is done in place. That work — a filter off, a filter back on — is not something we do.
- And if the light returns?
- The 30-day warranty includes aftercare, including an engineer returning to Smockington.
Arranging a DPF clean across Smockington
Call 0303 330 1830 and talk us through what the vehicle is doing: light, limp mode, smoke, whatever it is. Nobody travels to Smockington before you know a figure and a date. If the lines are down, enquiries@dpf-fixer.co.uk comes to us and gets answered first thing.
All our engineers maintain full public liability insurance, and we are ISO 14001 certified, ISO 9001 certified, SSIP Approved and SafeContractor approved.
Mobile DPF Cleaner is a trading name of DPF Fixer Ltd, which is rated 4.5 out of 5 from 1,989 reviews on Trustpilot. The rating is held by DPF Fixer Ltd.