Tangmere, West Sussex: Mobile DPF Cleaning
Treating the DPF happens at the vehicle, not at a garage. The engineer pulls up at your place over in Tangmere and gets to work. The diesel particulate filter is treated on the vehicle, a DPF regeneration comes next, and you end up with the filter you started with.
You'll be given a figure by phone before anyone leaves, the clean starting from £299, and the visit running typically around 2 hours.
Most drivers find us with the light on already, and the vehicle short of power. That is the position this page is meant for.
DPF light on? What comes next
It may not be the filter at all. That is the opening thing. Several faults put the very same light on the very same dash, which is why a visit starts with a check rather than with cleaning.
How the vehicle is driven in the meantime counts too.
- Worth a shot before you book anything: amber light, car driving as normal, just one steady run, no charge.
- Once the motor is in limp mode, a long run will not reach it. The window has gone.
- A diesel smell in there, or black smoke under the throttle, is the point to stop planning long drives and ring.
What the vehicle has been telling you
By the time the light appears, things have generally been going wrong for a while. It is late news:
- dropping away on power, above all uphill
- the revs no longer rise the way they once did
- economy that is worse than before
- stop/start quietly packing in
- diesel in the cabin, or smoke on the way up through the gearbox
That is not conclusive by itself. The light beside them points at a full filter.
What blocks diesel particulate filters around Tangmere
Being a rural village, Tangmere throws up just the motoring a DPF manages worst. A regeneration takes time and heat, and gets not much: not on the school run to Tangmere Primary Academy, not on Tangmere Road at half eight, not on five minutes to Co-op Food, and not on the run to Chichester. Instead of clearing, the unburnt soot banks up.
Save when you have a routine cause to get out to the Waterlooville Bypass, under 15 miles from Tangmere, or out to Chichester under 3 miles away, whole weeks pass without a long steady drive. Geography is against you.
Limp mode, and when DPF regeneration gives out
Limp mode is the car protecting itself. With pulling power held down and the revs held, the regeneration the filter wants can never happen at all. That counts, because triggering one is exactly what a sustained run does.
Getting it up the motorway is the usual advice, and it works right up to a point. Once the vehicle is in limp mode you are beyond that stage, and the filter requires a clean rather than road work.
DPF cleaning at the vehicle round Tangmere
Most owners do not see coming this detail: the filter stays on. The job happens with the DPF still fitted to the car — on your drive, in a work car park, anywhere the motor can wait for a while.
The ECU is interrogated first, showing soot load by proportion and by mass, along with a look over of sensor feeds, glow plugs and related hardware, so nothing is touched while another fault is still possible.
A cleaning fluid after that goes in through the entry point on that vehicle, opening out inside the filter to free soot and ash a regeneration alone will never budge. Sometimes a filter is clogged enough to take doing twice.
Next, a regeneration drives off everything the clean loosened. If you are there, that is run as a monitored drive out of Tangmere; if not, statically where the motor waits, with the real-time data read once done.
Both sets of figures go over by email, so the figures from either end are on record. The second check is what verifies the change, resets the light and logs whatever is still outstanding.
What a DPF clean will not cure
One thing is what treatment cures — a filter clogged with soot and ash. It does nothing for:
- a pressure sensor flagging a blockage that is not there
- an EGR valve stuck open
- AdBlue system failures
- glow plugs or injectors preventing the regeneration running at all
- oil coming through the filter from a worn turbo
Finding that out is the first diagnostic's job. If it turns out to be one of those, you are let know before any work begins rather than after you have handed over for it.
DPF renewal is what people type in, but no part is replaced: the filter you already own is cleaned where it sits and put back to work. Nor is having it cut out a fix, since the MOT then fails and driving becomes unlawful. Two more things worth knowing.
Costs for DPF cleaning across Tangmere
Treatment starts from £299, with the call-out charge on top of that for every visit — it pays for the call-out, the booking, the scans and the advice.
Quoting a flat rate would not be straight. We agree it by phone, once the motor and its expected needs are established. A pair of things change it: what you drive, and where you are — Tangmere itself, out at East Hampnett, or farther out within the PO postcode area.
You are not charged for cleaning that the diagnostic says will not help. What even so applies is the call-out charge, since the visit took place, the diagnostic was done and the advice was given.
If the light returns inside that time, an engineer travels back out to Tangmere — the work includes a 30-day warranty covering aftercare.
The engineer called Daz was excellent he was very friendly and personable and very knowledgeable about his work. My car is great again now.
Andras was excellent. He arrived on schedule, was knowledgeable, professional and courteous and took care of our car. So far the clean seems to have worked and we hope it continues to so we can avoid the hugely expensive DPF replacement.
Dan came out on time, did the job perfectly and explained each step of the process clearly to me, along the way; with tips on how to prevent any future DPF cloggages. This is a reliable company, and judging by Dan, with great, reliable technicians! Thanks Dan!
Where we reach round Tangmere, and what we clean
Whatever it is — estate, light van, light commercial, lorry, plant, construction machinery, agricultural vehicle — the very same on-site service applies, and the filter never quits it.
The same round that puts our engineers on Tangmere Road most weeks covers Tangmere, East Hampnett, Strettington and the spots beyond Boxgrove. Ring anyway from farther out across West Sussex. Coverage runs UK-wide, and the day you are given comes down to the schedule rather than how far away you are.
The ground around Tangmere
Tangmere is a village in West Sussex, situated near the city of Chichester and close to the South Downs National Park. Tangmere sits at a low elevation of around 19 metres, in an area of gently sloping countryside. Tangmere has a mix of housing types, but terraced houses are particularly prevalent in the village. Tangmere is located near several other small villages, including Boxgrove and Oving.
Questions Tangmere drivers ask about DPF cleaning
- Will a long drive shift it?
- It may, provided you get it in time and limp mode has not begun. It wants a long run at motorway speed, not ten minutes or so to Co-op Food and back.
- The visit runs how long?
- Allow typically around 2 hours — heavily loaded filters sometimes require a second pass, which extends it.
- Around Tangmere, what does it cost?
- A clean opens from £299, and the call-out charge on top pays for the visit, the diagnostic and the advice. Both the vehicle and where you are change it, which is why settling it is done by phone.
- Do I have to be there?
- Nobody expects you to stand with it — the car simply needs space to sit for a couple of hours. If you would rather come along, the regeneration can be run as a monitored drive instead.
- Can someone come to Tangmere soon?
- That comes down to the schedule, but it is often same-day or next-day. Ask 0303 330 1830 what is free across the PO area.
- Does the filter come off the car?
- On the on-site service, no: the filter is cleaned in place. Getting a filter off or fitting one back on amount to anything work we do whichever way.
- The light returns — then what?
- Included by the 30-day warranty: aftercare, and an engineer coming back to Tangmere.
Have a DPF clean booked across Tangmere
Ring 0303 330 1830 and talk us through what the motor is doing: the light, limp mode, smoke, whatever it is. Before anyone leaves for Tangmere, you will have both a price and a time. Anything sent to enquiries@dpf-fixer.co.uk out of hours is answered first thing.
Full public liability cover is maintained by our engineers, and we are SafeContractor approved, ISO 9001 certified, SSIP Approved and ISO 14001 certified.
DPF Fixer Ltd is rated 4.5 out of 5 from 1,989 reviews on Trustpilot. Mobile DPF Cleaner is a trading name of DPF Fixer Ltd; the rating is held by DPF Fixer.