[car home Information] In May, 2021, car home’s "Auto Helper" program once wrote about the problems that the owners of FAW-Volkswagen’s lunar exploration encountered a poor particulate filter (hereinafter referred to as "GPF"), which led to an abnormal increase in vehicle fuel consumption, a dull throttle and the failure of the engine’s automatic start-stop system. Auto Wang accompanied (|) car owners to visit the 4S shop at that time. The suggestion given by the 4S shop was to let the car owners solve the problem of poor GPF by running at high speed, but the car owners generally questioned that they seldom get on the high speed, which increased the burden on the car owners and was not the best solution. It has been five months since the report, and FAW-Volkswagen has also given the latest solution to the incident. car home’s Auto Master went to FAW-Volkswagen’s 4S store to follow up the follow-up progress of the whole upgrade process.

Speed reading of core points:
● FAW-Volkswagen will provide the latest upgrade plan for the problem owners, which will involve two parts: hardware upgrade and software upgrade.
● The official said: After the upgrade, it will effectively solve the problem of abnormally high fuel consumption caused by previous regeneration.
● The cost of this upgrade will be fully borne by FAW-Volkswagen.
● The upgrade target will focus on the owners of the previous feedback problems, and the official will take the initiative to contact these owners.
■ What exactly is a GPF particle catcher?
First of all, let’s make a simple review. What is GPF? Many consumers have probably heard of the three-way catalytic converter on the car. This product was born out of the requirements of automobile exhaust emission in that year. By installing the three-way catalytic converter at the exhaust pipe of the car, the exhaust emission can reach the standard. The installation of GPF has the same meaning as the three-way catalytic converter, which is a filter device installed to meet the national requirements of national six B exhaust emission. With it, we can call it a four-way catalytic converter. Quaternary refers to catalyzing four pollutants, namely CO (carbon monoxide), CxHx (hydrocarbon), NOx/SOx (acid oxide) and PM/PN (particulate matter), among which PM/PN (particulate matter) is the substance that needs to be filtered by GPF. With GPF, the Tanyue vehicle can reach the national sixth B emission and meet the rigid requirements of national automobile emission regulations.



The working principle of GPF is also very simple, that is, the fine carbon particles in the vehicle exhaust are captured before being discharged into the atmosphere, so as to meet the national emission standards. GPF can capture more than 90% of the soot produced by the law. When the particulate matter adsorption reaches a certain level, the vehicle will burn at high speed and become harmless carbon dioxide to be discharged.
■ Why did Volkswagen explore Yue and unexpectedly increase fuel consumption?
The relevant staff of FAW-Volkswagen told car home’s "Auto Wang" that the regeneration program of GPF can burn off the captured carbon particles. Under normal car use, GPF can be regenerated with less carbon particles accumulated. However, in the complex car environment, carbon particles are more likely to accumulate, which will precipitate carbon black, which will easily lead to poor GPF and repeated "blockage-regeneration" cycle, which will eventually lead to an increase in fuel consumption. In addition, a higher level of blockage requires a higher intensity of regeneration process, and the increase in fuel consumption will be more obvious. With the regeneration, the engine will stop working automatically.
So what is the complex car environment referred to here? Faw-Volkswagen staff pointed out that after repeated experiments, they found that GPF is prone to accumulate more carbon particles at low temperature and low speed, and both conditions are indispensable, but if one condition is not established, it will not accumulate more carbon particles. They said that at present, most car owners with GPF problems are users in the north, and the basic time for problems is in winter. Low speed refers to frequent driving on congested road sections, low average speed and possible short commuting distance. However, in the process of information collection in the first half of the year, we learned that some users in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province still had congestion problems in April and May, and the relevant situation of the car needs further official follow-up testing. FAW-Volkswagen also pointed out that in the complex car environment, it will not only lead to GPF problems, but also may lead to other problems of vehicles.

Relevant warnings have been added to the latest instruction manual for Yueyue exploration printed in August 2021. Frequent short-distance driving of vehicles and frequent cold start of engines will lead to a rapid increase in carbon particles trapped in particle traps.
■ What is the latest solution given by FAW-Volkswagen?
Volkswagen’s upgrade plan includes both software and hardware. The adjustment of software optimizes the regeneration logic and engine program, and the hardware mainly solves the related influence brought by software upgrade.
I. Software upgrade
1. Optimize the regeneration logic
FAW-Volkswagen said that the engine would perform the regeneration procedure when the GPF was in the state of secondary blockage, which led to an increase in fuel consumption. After this upgrade, the engine will not perform the regeneration procedure in the secondary state. If the user can’t burn the carbon particles in daily driving, the blockage will enter the third level, and then the engine will perform the regeneration procedure, and the new regeneration procedure is more "violent" than the previous three-level regeneration procedure. Officials also added that from the feedback they collected, most of the car owners who encountered problems were in secondary or lower level congestion, so the new logic can solve most of the car owners’ problems involved. We also mentioned that the secondary blockage of the particulate trap will have an impact on fuel consumption and the engine. The official said that the impact is very small.

2. Optimize the engine program
There must be two conditions for carbon combustion, the first is to ensure a relatively high temperature, and the second is to ensure that enough oxygen is burned. The new engine program has also been optimized for these two conditions. In terms of temperature, when more carbon particles are detected, the engine ignition advance angle is delayed, which makes the exhaust temperature rise and reaches the temperature condition of GPF regeneration. In the aspect of increasing oxygen, less fuel injection is given to the engine and the mixture in the engine cylinder is controlled. The new scheme will adjust the air-fuel ratio to make oxygen more abundant.

"The version number after upgrade is 0008 (the version number before upgrade may be different)"
Before this upgrade, the official advice of GPF regeneration was that users should get on the high speed and increase the engine speed, so as to heat up the exhaust gas and burn off carbon particles. However, in the daily car use environment, many users will not get on the highway, so they need to make a special trip to run the highway, which increases the car cost and time cost of consumers and causes users’ dissatisfaction. After the software upgrade, users only need to achieve vehicle regeneration at an average speed of about 30km/h, and there is no need to run high-speed for this purpose. After the software is upgraded, the software version number will become 0008.
Second, the hardware upgrade
Because the exhaust temperature is higher, it will affect some parts around the exhaust manifold. Therefore, hardware upgrade is to increase thermal insulation protection. It is worth noting that the thermal insulation curtain installed this time is exactly the same as the thermal insulation device of the same class in Volkswagen Europe. The thermal insulation curtain is made of glass fiber cloth, with aluminum foil on the front and PU coating on the back. However, the domestic Tanyue model used plastic insulation protection devices before. Why didn’t it adopt the same standard as the European model? We didn’t get the answer. It is worth mentioning that the thermal insulation device will be upgraded when the Tanyue model produced after September 26th leaves the factory. However, unlike the improvement of the above-mentioned Volkswagen Europe model of the same class, the previous plastic thermal insulation board will be upgraded to a metal thermal insulation board.









■ How do users judge whether there is a GPF problem in their car?
As we all know, FAW-Volkswagen divides the blockage of GPF into different grades, from light to heavy, which are divided into 1-5 grades. If the vehicle cannot burn the carbon particles smoothly at a certain level, the congestion level will enter the next level. For different grades, vehicles will perform different coping procedures.
Before the software upgrade, the second-class and third-class car owners are officially advised to drive at a speed of not less than 80km/h to complete the GPF regeneration, and the third-class car owners need a faster speed. After the software upgrade, the relevant staff of FAW-Volkswagen pointed out that the second-class car owners no longer need to take any measures, just need to drive normally. The owner of the third-class traffic jam, if driving at an average speed of 30km/h, can achieve regeneration in about 20 minutes (average speed refers to the average speed during the whole driving journey of a single trip). During the 20-minute regeneration, the instantaneous fuel consumption will reach 15-20L/100km.

However, in the 1-3 level congestion state, there will be no warning signs such as fault lights on the vehicle, and only through the 4S shop inspection can the blockage state of the vehicle’s particle trap be found. When Auto Wang in car home asked the staff of FAW-Volkswagen, how should the owner judge the state of his car? The answer given by FAW-Volkswagen staff is that it can only be judged according to its own car condition, and the vehicle will not be prompted.

If the car environment is complicated, and the average speed of daily car is below 20km/h, the car can’t be effectively regenerated after four car cycles, and the congestion level of the car will rise to level 4, then the GPF indicator light in the waiting room will light up. The staff gave us the suggestion that the GPF regeneration can be realized by increasing the average speed to 30-50km/h..
In the level 4 state, if the vehicle is still unable to be regenerated after four cycles, the vehicle will enter the level 5 state. At this time, three indicator lights, GPF, EPC and OBD, will light up at the same time on the instrument panel. When the three lights are lit up at the same time, it is suggested that the user directly drive the vehicle to the 4S shop for corresponding treatment. At this time, the 4S shop will do manual GPF regeneration for the user. That is to say, keep the engine of the vehicle at 3200rpm. After 3-5 minutes, the exhaust gas reaches the temperature of GPF regeneration, and the carbon particles will be burned. The whole process will be completed in 20 minutes, and the combustion of carbon particles will be very thorough.
Let’s summarize it a little bit.
According to the official description, after upgrading the program, users don’t need to run high-speed to realize the regeneration of GPF, but can realize the regeneration in daily driving under certain conditions (average speed and time). Of course, at this time, the vehicle may be in a certain state of level 1-3, and the fuel consumption may be higher than normal; If the GPF light is on, drive according to the requirements of the above four-stage regeneration; If the GPF, EPC and OBD lights are all on, you need to go to the store for regeneration.
FAW-Volkswagen staff confirmed to car home’s "Auto Wang" that they had conducted repeated verification experiments before. The experiment was carried out in the test environment of low-temperature warehouse. During this half year, more than 300 experiments were completed, and the experimental speed did not exceed 40km/h, and the regeneration could be completed normally. At the average speed of 35km/h, it only takes 11 minutes to regenerate the third-class to fourth-class vehicles in the experiment. In the worst case, GPF regeneration can be completed at an average speed of 20 km/h. FAW-Volkswagen believes that the latest method is reliable and will effectively solve the current GPF problems. As for the actual situation, car home will continue to pay attention to it, and hope that the relevant car owners can give relevant information in time.
■ Some questions about this upgrade.
1. In what form? Which models can be upgraded?
FAW-Volkswagen official said that the upgrade will be done in the form of in-store service. The official will take the initiative to contact the car owners who have had problems before and give feedback to FAW-Volkswagen 4S stores. We also raised the question of whether the owner can upgrade his vehicle if he doesn’t know whether there are related problems or if he hasn’t given feedback before. The on-site staff said that as long as the production batch is the Guoliu B Tanyue 330TSI and Tanyue X 330TSI models produced from April 3, 2020 to September 26, 2021, they can be upgraded. However, for the part of the car owners we are talking about, the official will not take the initiative to contact, depending on whether the user himself puts forward the demand.
2. Is there a charge for this upgrade?
The official said that the upgrade was completely free and there was no other compensation.
3. Will the contents of the upgrade be reflected in the maintenance list?
In the previous investigation, many 4S stores did not reflect the related detection and maintenance problems of particle traps on the maintenance list. We also verified this with the official, and the other party said that this new upgrade will be reflected in the user’s upgrade maintenance list, which will be well-founded. Officials also said that after the upgrade, the fuel consumption will return to the normal level, and the fuel consumption will increase only within a short period of GPF regeneration. At the same time, FAW-Volkswagen also called on car owners to use regular gasoline. If inferior oil products are used, the problem will probably happen again.
4. How long does it take to upgrade?
The staff of FAW-Volkswagen said that this upgrade requires installing heat insulation curtains on the parts near the engine exhaust manifold, so it is necessary to carry out related operations in the vehicle state. Therefore, the whole service process takes about two and a half hours to three hours, and the software upgrade takes about 20 minutes.

According to our actual experience, after the vehicle is parked, the master will first remove the plastic heat insulation board from the ABS pump assembly, put on the heat insulation curtain and then install it. After that, the vehicle will be lifted, the chassis guard will be removed, and the position of GPF will be moved down. The master can install the heat insulation curtain on the pipeline of GPF sensor from below. However, because these two places are located in the back of the engine compartment, the master needs blind operation to complete it, which is time-consuming and laborious. On the spot, the whole hardware upgrade took about 90 minutes. Then came the software upgrade, which was relatively fast and took only 20 minutes. The two upgrades took 110 minutes together, less than 2 hours. Counting the time when the vehicle stood still, we expect that the whole upgrade will take at least 3 hours.
5. When will this upgrade service start?
This upgrade service will start on October 25th. FAW-Volkswagen will call the car owners who complained earlier to upgrade, but other car owners will not take the initiative to notify the upgrade. If other car owners have related problems, they can also go to FAW-Volkswagen 4S shop for testing at any time. At the same time, we learned from the car home Forum that some car owners have received relevant calls at present, but due to the supply of related accessories, there may be a small time difference among dealers around the country when the operation can be upgraded.
6. Do users need to make an appointment in advance when upgrading vehicles with GPF problems?
In order to provide users with better service and experience, it is recommended to contact the dealer in advance to make an appointment.
■ Are there any related issues involved in the sale of Tanyue and other FAW-Volkswagen models?
So what’s the status of the models currently on sale? The staff of FAW-Volkswagen said that all the models produced after September 26th, 2021 adopted the latest software, and as mentioned above, the hardware was replaced with metal thermal insulation curtains. According to the official, there are basically no stock vehicles produced before September 26 in the store, so consumers can buy them with confidence.

In addition, we also asked about the situation that the vehicle "recommended No.98 oil" before. FAW-Volkswagen staff said that this had nothing to do with GPF blockage, and the label was changed in batches, and some models of Tanyue just caught up. However, we saw in the store that the description of the fuel label inside the Tanyue fuel tank cover currently on sale has been changed to "Please fill No.95 (lowest) unleaded gasoline".
Then, apart from the Tanyue model, why does Magotan’s 330TSI model have no related problems? The staff of FAW-Volkswagen said that the Magotan 330TSI(1540kg) was not equipped with GPF, because the Magotan car was light in weight and the power system load was small, and the carbon particle emission of the engine could meet the requirements of national laws and regulations without installing GPF, so it did not involve GPF. On the other hand, the Tanyue 330TSI(1645kg) vehicle has a large self-weight, and under the same working conditions, the engine will emit more carbon particles, so it is necessary to install GPF. No matter the average fuel consumption test of NEDC or WLTP, under the specified speed, the requirements will not be relaxed because of the weight of the vehicle. If the vehicle with a large self-weight wants to meet the specified speed, it needs more power output, resulting in more emissions and higher requirements to deal with the excessive emissions.
According to the official, at present, other models of FAW-Volkswagen do not involve related issues and will not participate in this upgrade.
■ Edit Comment:
In the previous information collection, the demands of car owners were actually very simple, "as long as GPF is not blocked." FAW-Volkswagen’s upgrade plan optimizes the logic of regeneration, but it is impossible to really achieve no carbon particle accumulation, no regeneration and no increase in fuel consumption at present. However, whether the problem can be solved to the maximum extent and whether most car owners can no longer worry about it depends on what effect this upgrade scheme can bring. We also welcome the majority of car owners to supervise and give feedback together.
Of course, don’t forget, there are also some users of the "complex car environment". High-level congestion will not disappear because of this upgrade, and some car owners are likely to still encounter previous problems. We hope FAW-Volkswagen can communicate with these car owners in an equal, positive and frank way, and also hope to give a practical and effective solution to truly reassure all consumers.
At present, FAW-Volkswagen has officially started the upgrade service, and we will keep an eye on the situation of the upgraded vehicles. As for you who are also worried about safeguarding rights, you can explain your problem to car home complaint platform (exclusive complaint hotline 4009725726), and we will try our best to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of every car owner. Because we didn’t have the actual measurement experience this time, we haven’t actually recorded some power performance and fuel consumption performance during GPF regeneration, and we will pay more attention to it in the future. (Text/car home Qin Chao; Survey: Chen Hao, Qin Chao; Assistance: Wang Yin, Chen Hao)
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