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Serious question, who else has dealt with a DPF delete gone wrong? | Diesel Mechanics - Talk Freely

Serious question, who else has dealt with a DPF delete gone wrong?

Last month I tried a DPF delete on my 2012 Ram 2500. Got it done in my buddy's shop outside Austin, and for two weeks it ran like a dream. Then the CEL came on and the truck started puking black smoke every time I hit the gas. Took it to a legit diesel shop in San Antonio and they said the delete wasn't tuned right and the EGR was clogged. Cost me $1,200 to undo the mess. Has anyone else had a botched delete blow up on them like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

black.joel5mo ago

Man that sucks lol. I've seen this exact thing happen way too many times with guys trying to cheap out on deletes. The problem is most people don't understand the tune is literally everything. You can do all the mechanical work perfect but if the guy writing the tune doesn't know what he's doing you're gonna have smoke and limp mode issues. My buddy runs a diesel performance shop and he says half the deletes he sees come in were done by some dude with a laptop who watched a YouTube video. Honestly you're lucky it was only 1200 to fix. I've seen guys blow turbos and fry entire wiring harnesses from bad tunes. Next time just spend the extra cash on a proper tuner or find a shop that actually does dyno tuning.

murphy.barbara3mo ago

You ever notice how nobody ever blames the guy who installed the parts, just the tune? My cousin swore up and down he could do his own delete with a "buddy's" laptop file, ended up with soot all over his driveway and a check engine light that looked like a Christmas tree. Turned out the EGR was still hooked up wrong and the tuner never even checked it, just wrote a file that made the truck run rich as hell. Cost him double what it should have to get it sorted at a real shop. Makes you wonder why people think YouTube is the same as years of experience, doesn't it?

the_angela5mo ago

Hold up, 1200 bucks to undo a delete seems kinda steep for what sounds like a simple issue. I mean a clogged EGR and a tune that isnt dialed in is annoying but blowing a whole turbo or frying a harness? I see that fear mongering all the time on forums but never actually see anyone posting pics of the damage. Most of the time its just people who messed up the install or bought a cheap tuner from some dude on Facebook. You probably just had a bad file, not some catastrophic failure waiting to happen. Lucky it was cheap to fix honestly.