How to Send a DPF by Courier for Cleaning: Packing, Labelling and What Comes Back

We clean filters, not vehicles, and the filter does not care how far it has travelled. That is why a workshop in Nashik can clean filters from Pune, Mumbai and the whole of Maharashtra without anyone driving for a day: the local garage removes the filter, it goes in a box, and it comes back cleaned with the readings for the same garage to refit. This is how most of the work here arrives. The process is simple, but a ceramic substrate is not a brake disc, and a filter that is packed badly can arrive cracked. Here is how to do it so that does not happen.

Before the filter comes off

1. 1Have your workshop read and note the fault codes, the soot load and the ash load from the ECU, and keep that with the job. It tells us what to expect and tells your workshop what to re-check afterwards.
2. 2Photograph the filter in place, including the sensor and pressure-line positions. It makes refitting unambiguous.
3. 3If a forced regeneration has been tried, say so. A filter that has been through a failed burn is one we look at closely for cracking before cleaning.
4. 4Remove the sensors and the pressure lines rather than shipping them attached. They are the parts most likely to be damaged in transit, and we do not need them.

Packing a ceramic substrate

The substrate inside the steel can is a brittle honeycomb. It will survive a vehicle's whole life bolted under the floor, but a drop onto a concrete floor from waist height can crack it, and so can a sharp knock on the end face. Pack it as you would pack glass of the same weight.

• Seal both open ends with a cap, thick cardboard taped on, or several layers of plastic. This keeps loose soot in and prevents anything being pushed into the channels.
• Wrap the whole unit in bubble wrap or foam, with extra at the ends and over the flanges.
• Use a box with at least five centimetres of padding on every side, and fill any void so the filter cannot move. A filter that can shift inside its box will shift at every speed bump.
• Do not ship it loose in a sack, and do not strap it to a pallet without a box around it.
• Mark the box "Fragile: ceramic, this way up" on at least two faces.

What to put in the box

• A note with your name, phone number and the return address, in case the outside label is damaged.
• The vehicle make, model, year and registration, and the mileage.
• The fault codes and the soot and ash readings, if you have them.
• What you want: a standard clean, or a clean plus any of the additional tests on the rate card.

Then message us the tracking number. We check the filter against it when it arrives, and the job is opened on that day rather than when someone finds a box.

What happens here

1. 1The filter is unpacked, indexed, weighed and photographed, and the packing is inspected for signs of a knock in transit.
2. 2Flow and back pressure are measured on the bench. If the substrate is cracked or collapsed, you are told then, before any cleaning, and you are not charged for a clean that would not help.
3. 3The thermal and pneumatic cleaning cycles run. Most filters are done the same day they arrive.
4. 4Flow and back pressure are measured again, and both readings go on the report with the weight of material removed.
5. 5The filter is repacked in the same way it should have arrived, with the report, and sent back by the service you choose.

What your workshop does when it comes back

Refit the filter with new gaskets, reconnect the sensors and pressure lines, and have the ECU's soot and ash counters reset. That last step matters: a cleaned filter with the old ash value still stored will be treated by the vehicle as if it were still full, and may keep inhibiting regeneration. The before and after readings on the report give your workshop something to compare the live differential pressure against once the vehicle is running.