had a heads up years ago that the EGR valve on my ageing (01 ‘Y’ registered 190k miles) passat was leaking oil. it’s a PD 130.

anyway, just about to change the oil etc and there’s a fair amount of build up around the offending article so i was thinking of replacing it. is this necessary? in my opinion mpg is down a bit and it smokes a bit more than it used to but then it is getting a little long in the tooth so not necessarily related to the EGR.

My understanding is that if you can clean it up enough to work then no.

There maybe loads of gunk built up, but the sooty deposit has also built up on the inlet manifold so unless you clean that out as well it won’t make much difference.

PS: i’m no mechanic

in my experience they are made of cheese. had to get one replaced when the cog lost teeth causing it to jam and illuminate the pretty lights on the dash. I cant remember if it affected mpg but i guess it must have. A good clean up should sort it though?

im no mechanic but it think the egr valve puts hot exhaust gases back through the engine when the engine is cold.. but once they start f-ing up they put the exhaust gas through all the time therefore making it run less efficient..
i took the one off my td5 discovery and it improved performance and mpg, but then it did hav about 160k on so probly was knackered..

do a search on the net an you mite be able to find a blanking kit to remove it

just found this….

http://www.egrvalve.co.uk/index.php?page=Purchase-EGR-Kits

Or you could just by the plate for £15 and clean up the existing housing. Or indeed make one out of a bit of steel plate.

Cleaning the housing is very messy. I’d suggest using a small pot, fill it with brake cleaner, put in the housing and then seal it up so the cleaner doesn’t evapourate!

Leave it to soak for an hour then see if it’s cleaned up.