When we started our Pan-American trip with our Landcruiser 78 series V8 and its 1VD-FTV engine also DPF equipped, I always been warn about DPF issues which I might face, this subject always was in my mind specially in all remote areas and the far offroad tracks away from any help, some people suggested me to delete the DPF but this will be not be legal for our return to New Zealand, so I tried to do my best to avoid any DPF blockage,
Also I have to add, Toyota did excellent job for allowing users to be able to re generate the DPF burn manually, I never end up to do so but I will link to this instruction for you here to in case of any trouble to have it as extra assurance, this ability for regenerating DPF manually could not be found in other rigs like European sprinters etc..
During our 80,000 kilometer from North to South of American continent, I always changed my engine oil and filter on-time on the roads and after each 7,500 interval, but the oil I used was always C2 or C3 type and 0W-30 or 5w30 and nothing else, but finding this type oil to meet C2/C3 standard is little hard in some under developed countries or even countries with different standard and required lots of market search and planning ahead.
Another aspect which saved us from DPF blockage was to use only low PPM quality diesels or low Sulphur types, in some countries they offer you two types in their gas stations tho and others only one type, the countries like Argentina and Brazil they have two type of quality for offering diesel, but in the others its been pretty good during our trip for finding good quality in their one type offering of diesel for the users, except Bolivia which we managed to visit only some part of it not entire Bolivia and we passed it without any diesel refill, even in high altitude which I was always worry our Troopy with Turbo did very well for engine start in the cold and mornings and also DPF regenerating in any altitude happened as usual,
We passed up to 5,100 meters altitude in Peruvian altitude and no issue at all, so by my experience till today DPF is not a worry at all, the Troopy so far after 160k on its ODO did very good job regenerating the DPF and we never had its level indicator more than No.4 If I face any issues in the future which I hope not, I will update this post too,
Regarding finding C2/C3 oil I listed all available oils for this type and what we found in each country we passed, so you can plan ahead for your services and what to search for a proper oil in your passing countries ahead of you, I will add more into this list once we started to explore more countries in the future,
Also you can see the gear oils which I found in the international markets too, for manual gear box and Transfer case I use only 75W-90 GL4 and for front and rear differential I use only 80W-90 or 85W-90 SL (Limited Slip) GL5.
Hope this post to be useful for all 1VD-FTV engine owners with DPF,
Cheers/Amir
