2012 Ford 6.7L DEF & Regen Questions

Uppercrust wrote:
Does the truck system alert you when the DEF has only so many miles to go yet or just a generic signal?

The short answer is yes it does. Here's a video on how the system works.

Link

Does the truck system alert you when the DEF has only so many miles to go yet or just a generic signal?

Whatever you do make sure that you keep your DEF levels to the point that you can keep fresh fluid in the tank. Just had a problem with mine. Indications were that the DEF pump was faulty. That wasn't the case. The DEF in the tank had crystallized and plugged the filter in the bottom of the tank. There is a shelf life. This creates a problem for me because the gauge always shows that the tank is less than half full. Dealers suggestion was to run it till you got the message that you had x miles before refill. Creates a real pain. If you buy ahead too far it will crystallize and if you are on a trip and you need it in the next 100 miles and there is no place to get it for 200 miles. I don't know if I will run into that problem but it is something to think about. I love the truck and it is a towing beast but I may just bite the bullet and buy something that doesn't use DEF.

One way to measure soot buildup, regens, etc. is to use the Edge Insight which looks like a programmer (so your dealer won’t like it), but has no capacity to program. It connects to the ODBII port. Data available will vary from one engine to another. I use mine on a Ford 6.7 to measure soot mass, #1 Exhaust temp., #4 Exhaust temp, engine oil temp., & battery voltage. I think that the Ford 6.4 regened on a clock or mileage or something pre-programmed which is one of the reasons that its mileage was so poor. The 6.7 regens normally when soot mass gets up to 2.68 and continues until it gets down to about 1.6. You can watch the temperature on #4 exhaust get up very high during the regen and the soot mass will continue on down to 1.3 until the exhaust cools. It’s also good to be able to watch exhaust and oil temps during heavy towing. When we were on a towing trip out West our soot mass stayed below 1.0 most of the trip just from high engine temps from towing. We had one regen on the second day of the trip at only a soot mass of 1.4. There is something that trips a regen besides soot mass, but the threads I read haven’t figured it out yet, and it is rare.

If a 6.7 doesn't regen enough because of cold engine temps., you'll get a "Drive to Regen" message. If you get that, you need to take a long hot trip because the next step is expensive dealer cleaning. Our 2012 tends to have many partial short regens in cold weather, but we have never gotten the drive to regen. On a 4700 mi. western trip towing 75% we only regened once, but we went through about twice as much DEF, all due to the higher engine temps.

gmcsmoke wrote:
cold temps increase the regen interval and decreases the DEF usage.

I can go 1,000 miles between regens in the winter on the same stretch of road that causes me to regen at 250 miles in august

How are you monitoring regens/soot grams? I didn't think that was possible on GM trucks. I have always heard they are programmed to force a regen after ~700mi regardless of soot grams. Basically whichever comes first. I know that is true for the LMLs, not sure about LMMs.

I have never noticed any significant difference in regen intervals on my LML between winter and summer months although I live in balmy California. Maybe some difference, but not 4x that is for sure.

gmcsmoke wrote:
cold temps increase the regen interval and decreases the DEF usage.

I can go 1,000 miles between regens in the winter on the same stretch of road that causes me to regen at 250 miles in august

With my truck the cold temps (relatively speaking :B) "Decrease" the regen intervals and "Decrease" the DEF usage.

Without an actual guage to monitor DEF quantity in these Ford trucks it's hard to tell how much DEF you consume until you fill up with more DEF. I typically add ~3 gallons of DEF at every fuel change.

After 4,500 miles I would have to add 2 1/2 gallons even not towing. But our temps are not nearly as low as yours, and I do live 4 miles outside of town so I get a little highway each day.
The "cleaning exhaust filter" message only stays on the info center a few seconds so I do not always notice when it does go into regen mode.

Uppercrust wrote:

On a potentially related topic, I don't think my truck has gone into regen mode for MONTHS. Short trips (less than 15 miles) and a cold winter meant that it didn't get above temp to kickoff a regen cycle.

Sounds like a good excuse for a road trip :) get it all up to normal operating temperature and burn anything out of the DPF that might have accumulated. If it needs to regen I suspect it will during that trip.

cold temps increase the regen interval and decreases the DEF usage.

I can go 1,000 miles between regens in the winter on the same stretch of road that causes me to regen at 250 miles in august