City-bound diesel and the DPF: what regeneration routine actually works for you?

Mine does a lot of short market and school runs through the week, which is exactly the diet a diesel particulate filter hates. Long highway stints are the exception, not the rule.

So I sat down with Toyota India's own DPF pages and two things stuck with me. You're meant to start a manual regeneration only when the multi information display prompts you, not as a weekly ritual of your own. And regeneration does not work above 4,000 metres, which anyone planning Spiti or Ladakh should file away properly.

What I'd like to hear is how you handle it in daily use. Do you have a fixed habit, like a steady run on the bypass every weekend so it burns off by itself? Or do you simply wait for the MID to ask, park up and let it do its thing?

Owners who are almost entirely city bound, your input especially.