My mate says the issue with my car is because of short journeys???

Admittedly he does tend to know alot about cars, basically I have an issue with one of the cylinders and he reckons its because I dont drive it enough and diesel cars need to go on the motorway and not built for city driving... now I wasn’t aware that a car was like a dog and needed an exercise regime. Any truth in what he is saying?

Apparently he is right. Scroll down and look at other threads on this problem. Dpf filters get blocked if you do lots of short journeys.

OP is talking about a cylinder issue though, not a DPF issue. For all we know the OP's car is old enough to not be fitted with a DPF...

It really depends what the cylinder issue is. In fact, more to the point, how does the OP know it's a cylinder issue? Maybe it's a gunked up injector? I'd get a proper mechanic to look it over to see what's what. If it's a gunked up injector, it'll eventually seize in the block (my car had this issue, the injector issue was never picked up until it was really bad because it had always felt rather sluggish and gutless, it wasn't until I noticed it was struggling up a hill at 2K RPMs in 3rd (which it has generally coped with perfectly fine) that I suspected something was up). If that happens, it's a pain in the ass to fix. Not too costly if they can get it out, but if they can't they'll have to snap the injector to get it out, which may well result in your car being a write-off.

But yeah OP, modern diesels do need a bit of a run every now and again if you only do short journeys with them to stop the DPF from clogging up.

Do you need to do some of these or even all of these short journeys and should you be thinking about having either a petrol car or none at all?

Well thats what Im wondering now, I do about 7 miles to work, 7 miles back mon-fri would this be classed as a short journey? Are diesels not meant for this? I don’t really drive unless I have to I still enjoy walking places if I can..

Yeah for a 'decent run' I think they mean an hour+ on the motorway basically. I think the engine has to reach a certain temp before it'll start cleaning and they moan if it's interrupted. (a 'little coiled wire' light should come on somewhere)

What error codes is the scanner giving you? 3rd party ones can be tricky/inaccurate to interpret as they don't have the manufactures own software (I've been chasing a phantom cylinder problem around my car for weeks)

Would I get this problem in a petrol car?

You don't need to use the motorway to make a diesel work properly, but you might have issues if 90% of your use is short 5 minute hops around town. I've always been fine using my car mainly for driving to work and back - that is a 25 minute journey on B-roads. It is good to find somewhere to open it up within the speed limit occasionally.

You don't need to use the motorway to make a diesel work properly

I’ve never gone above 50 in my car tbh..

Well there's your problem. Have you ever taken it up to redline on the tach or do you just amble around in town? Diesels are very sooty and oily by nature and that all builds up inside the engine. They are also very thermally efficient so it's hard for them to warm up to operating temperature. They need a good thrashing once a month to get it nice and hot and help blow all the crud out. Taking it up to redline in third when overtaking someone is a good way to let it stretch its legs. Also a couple of hours on the motorway.

If your car is post 2005/2006 it probably has a DPF which will 100% fail if you only ever drive around town. They're a rather expensive fix as well..

But speed limit tho...

You can get away with a diesel with city driving but it requires to driven for a long time every month or so to ensure the dpf remains unblocked. Either that or a heavy right foot to ensure the dpf gets hot enough to perform passive regeneration. Most manufacturers state to drive in (one gear below top) at 65mph to allow the car to perform an active regen.

If these fail, they can cost upwards of £500 for a reconditioned part alone.