DPF Issues happen on other cars also

[FarmerPug]

My uncles golf, he cant drive at the moment because hes out of hospital but had me buy it for him, and now fix a bunch of problems on it like the paintwork scratches, dents etc before he drives it. But its booked in for the bodywork to get sorted. But it has a light on, if it was in a different car such as a peugeot, toyota, ford etc you would call it the engine management light, but it turns out to be according to the book the golfs equivilant of the dpf, what actually goes wrong when this light comes on. Of course the golf has no mfd, or bleeper so its not as annoying as a fault in the 406 where its spelt out on the MFD and bleeps at you, but even so theres still a light and ive been given the task of sorting it out. Its a MK4 golf tdi, i recall someone on here saying they had one, any help?

[FarmerPug]

sorted itself out today with a good blast at max revs

[Bailes1992]

Yeh the DPF light comes on when it's blocked up. The engine works at a higher tempreture to help the DPF regenerate. My Dad's boss had it come on his Passat CC about a month ago, told me about it and said he had it booked into the garage for monday. I told him I could fix it! He gimmie the keys, I give the car back to him, engine off and the exhaust was still smoking about 5 mins afterwards, he goes "What did you do"... "Well, i fixed it "