[Closed] Have I killed my egr valve?

Uhphh... Bloody egr valves! I've had two pack up on my last van, both left me stranded on the motorway with my bike in the back. I've a new van and its booked in on Thursday to have the egr deleted from the ecu system.

Can you not just blank the damn thing off? It'll be cheaper and more reliable in the long run.

Never considered that!

I've only had the van about 3 months. Pervoiuse to the last two vans I had two cars in about 12 year with nearby zero issues on either both hitting 200k ish. Vans have both been about 100kish and nothing but bloody trouble!

All sorts of egr problems on my Mondeo 🙁
A £3 blanking plate of ebay sorted it.

Blanked mine off on my old Alfa 147. The difference in performance was surprising.

They're not worth the hassle. Work great when brand new but then after a few miles they do the complete opposite of what they're meant to...

[i]Took my egr valve off yesterday, separated the servo from the casting. Sprayed cleaner all over the casting and valve. I also sprayed some on the underside of the servo where the motor shaft came out as that had a little soot on it.[/i]

Er, why - to break it, or is this some fix I don't know about?

tbh mine was identified as failing at 60k, and the garage just put a new one in - seem to solve the problem, now at +80k.

I've done a bit of research on removing/blanking off my EGR. There seems to be few if any down sides. Because you are not putting burnt gases back into the engine which are lacking in oxygen, there is is slight improvement in performance but a marked improvement in mpg. The engine and oil also stays cleaner as you aren't putting crap into the cylinders. My biggest concern was will it pass mot on emissions, and it will, so mine is being deleted on Thursday!
The only negative comment I had was a (know all) mechanic mate who said deleting/blanking off increases the cylinder temperature, which makes absolutely no sense!

After cleaning, driving, cleaning, driving, etc I got tired of the process so just unplugged it ... no issues since.

Kangoo 1.5 DCI BTW.

@BR. Yep to fix an existing "anti polution fault" problem that was casuing random drop off in power every so often usualy when on the motorway. Driving drive drive sudden drop in RPM the sudden restart.

The only negative comment I had was a (know all) mechanic mate who said deleting/blanking off increases the cylinder temperature, which makes absolutely no sense!

The engine won't know you've deleted it (beyond noticing a change in Mass Air Pressure) so will still provide the same quantity of fuel to the now oxygen rich(er) mixture. Exhaust Gas Temperatures will rise but not by any amount (that I've ever heard of) that would make it a problem.

Getting a remap would sort the problem, live one is about £400 though.

Mine died a while ago, had to replace it, apparently you can't blank them off in newer 1.6hdi engines

Blanked mine on my Freelander 1...definitely felt like there was a performance improvement although a slight increase in my insurance premium.

Trying to decide whether to do the same on my 1.6 Yeti...seems my complicated than my freelander in terms of error codes

Egr valves use the recirculated exhaust gas to reduce combustion temperatures in order to reduce NOx emissions (NOx is produced at very high temps) so it makes sense that temperatures could increase without it.

Yes it will increase the overall average cylinder temperature, add its there to reduce temperatures to try and stop the formation of nitrous oxides. Some ECUs will detect via the map sensor when the egr valve opens and closes, to check it's working, others have a positional feedback sensor. As for mot, is not part of the test only the level of metered smoke, so if it causes no extra smoke not a problem. Currently an engine management light, causes no more than an advisory, but there is moves to include, as is the case with California, which is one of the big driving forces in vehicle emissions reduction.

Steady on now.

EGR does put exhaust gas back into the engine and reduces oxygen, yes.

BUT

1) It shouldn't do this under high load - the ECU should shut it off, so if everything's working there will be NO difference in performance when you boot it.

Because you are not putting burnt gases back into the engine which are lacking in oxygen, there is is slight improvement in performance but a marked improvement in mpg

It won't starve the engine of oxygen, that'd be stupid. Diesels run lean all the time - that is, when cruising you fill the cylinder with air but only inject a little bit of fuel, so most of the air exits without doing anything. This air isn't needed, so this is what's replaced by exhaust gas. It has sensors in the exhaust so it knows how much oxygen is leaving the cylinder, and it has a sensor in the intake so it knows how much is coming in. This way it can work out how much to open the EGR valve and how much gas is being recirculated. When it needs more oxygen to meet the load you've asked for it will reduce EGR until at full load it'll be off. AFAIK it is most likely off when cruising at speed anyway.

2) If it fails, it should fail shut off - the one in my car is spring loaded so without power it shuts. Therefore, if it stops working you'll get no EGR and you WON'T get black smoke like the OP. He has probably broken or forgotten to reconnect something else. If it's jammed open then, well you should've noticed when you put it back on; but even then I think the MAF should notice that less fresh air and hence oxygen is coming in and reduce fuelling so you should avoid black smoke. You'd lose power though.

3) No downsides to removing it? It's there for a reason. NOx is very nasty stuff, and your clever fix is making life that bit worse for the local kids with asthma or old people struggling through respiratory conditions. Don't be a ****. Like the smart arsed MKIV souped up Golf TDI owner cruising around Risca a few months ago, spewing thick black smoke everywhere. I could *taste* diesel for miles, never mind smell it. Bastard. Pollution is real and it's not nice.

I had a furthér look last night and it is defiantly stuck open, nothing left off. I only bought the van recently but when I took the egr valve off I did see the the plug socket had been badly damaged such that the clip was broken so someone else had a go before more but they were a little forceful. New valve ordered fingers crossed. Good job I'm cycle commuting ATM!

As molgrips says...plus Blanking only works on very early euro 3 stuff (2003) ish.
All newer stuff must be able to detect a disconnected or blocked off EGR valve.
Unfortunately EGR valves are going no where. Diesel technology is only getting more complex.
But EGR valves are getting much more reliable. And no where near as problematic as a few years ago.

No downsides to removing it? It's there for a reason. NOx is very nasty stuff, and your clever fix is making life that bit worse for the local kids with asthma or old people struggling through respiratory conditions. Don't be a ****. Like the smart arsed MKIV souped up Golf TDI owner cruising around Risca a few months ago, spewing thick black smoke everywhere. I could *taste* diesel for miles, never mind smell it. Bastard. Pollution is real and it's not nice.

Vs the soot particulates they produce instead? There's more than one way to skin a cat, you can reduce EGT's quite easily and cleanly with water injection rather than a system thats unreliable at best (and who's knock on is more unreliable systems to counteract the downsides they produce).

Blanking works on anything, very few engines will actually throw a hissy fit if you do.

Your MkIV chum will probably be some plank of the 'no smoke, no poke' mindset. Don't worry, he'll have burnt the whole thing out before long anyway.

? It's there for a reason. NOx is very nasty stuff, and your clever fix is making life that bit worse for the local kids with asthma or old people struggling through respiratory conditions. Don't be a ****.

Emotive and not easy to evidence. Yes EGR valves when working correctly reduce NOx emissions, but they increase wear and tear on engines and reduce efficiency, increase particulate production leading to the need for DPFs (and the polluting and counterproductive 'regeneration' process). They are pretty much an automotive industry workaround in reply to specific legislation, they swap one air quality issue for another.

Like the smart arsed MKIV souped up Golf TDI owner cruising around Risca a few months ago, spewing thick black smoke everywhere. I could *taste* diesel for miles, never mind smell it. Bastard. Pollution is real and it's not nice.

I'm sure he was a 'bastard', but this is unlikely to be anything to do with an EGR delete, so fairly irrelevant to the thread. He'll have had his pump turned up so that the car overfuels on full demand either electronically via a cheap remap or plugin box, or mechanically.

Well said v8 ninety and squirellking.

Its an elastoplast.

Unfortunantly i see the future of diesel being similar to that of 4 star . Wont be binning my v8 engine too soon incase my 200tdi is forced off the road.

and the polluting and counterproductive 'regeneration' process

Yeah not sure about this.. heard a lot of nonsensical myths about this on the internet. As far as I know the soot in the DPF is combusted ie converted into CO2 during regen.

you can reduce EGT's quite easily and cleanly with water injection

Yeah but the OP's hardly going to fit that now is he? 🙂

Unfortunantly i see the future of diesel being similar to that of 4 star

Leaded petrol was an engineering solution that's been replaced by a better solution. EGR will be replaced with SCR, which is a better solution.

Maybe so in cars but what will they do for vans? I know in the states and Canada they still have big gas pickups but hey need such massive engines.

Probably the same. There are a few market-based reasons they have those huge gasoline engines in their trucks and I think some environmental ones.

Have we found out what van it is yet btw?

and the polluting and counterproductive 'regeneration' process

Yeah not sure about this.. heard a lot of nonsensical myths about this on the internet. As far as I know the soot in the DPF is combusted ie converted into CO2 during regen.

Ah yes, CO2.

Nope, don't see the problem there.

@molgrips the ultimate stw van of course. Fiat scudo 1.6l of raw power.