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Damian James' Blog: 9 March 2010 - DPF fears
Date: 09 March 2010
Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF's) or more commonly known as Don't Please Fleets
I have talked about these before in my blog and as we roll on inevitably towards Euro V they are becoming more common. There are now some ranges of diesel vehicles that no longer have a non-DPF version. I know that there has been a lot of work undertaken in the last year or so to increase the efficiency of the filters so now the speed and heat required for re-generation is lower. I am still concerned though.
I am shortly to find myself as a fleet manager faced with no option but to order a diesel vehicle with a DPF. The only other way round this is to order a petrol model which may not be suitable or even available in a commercial vehicle guise. For someone in the Public Sector where traditionally a large proportion of vehicles are utilised around town doing low speeds on short journeys how are DPF's going to work? I think that this is going to be the start of a big problem for fleets. Until the efficiency of these filters is improved so that any driving is going to cause re-generation a lot of fleets are going to suffer.
The other (viable?) alternative is to look at electric vehicles which as we all know aren't being looked at too favourably by leasing companies currently.
Perhaps through this blog I can highlight what an important issue this is likely to be for fleets but particularly in the Public Sector.
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