Peoria_TDI
Veteran Member
I will be cleaning my EGR soon, and plan on using carb cleaner and a tooth brush. If anyone has a better method, I would appreciate your suggestions.
Why is it a waste of time?TDI Believer said:You'll be wasting your time.
Me too. I don't understand why cleaning/removing something that adversely affects mpg and performance is a waste of time.Smokerr said:I plan on wasting my time when I get a nice warm weekend as well.
Yep...another pic of a dirty EGR valve. Now that you've made it all spiffy, it can dump more soot into your intake manifold much more efficiently.jrock said:TDI Believer,
Did you look at how restricted my EGR was?
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=172724
If you can get a chip tuner to do an EGR delete (essentially flattening the EGR map), the EGR valve will never open. That's probably the best thing you could do for your engine.bigEZ said:well, i didn't think of it that way. i was getting ready to clean mine in a couple of weeks, but now i might reconsider.
believer, the egr delete that jeff does with his programing, does it affect this area, the egr valve? if so, then you're right, why would you clean the valve?
I can easily get 42 mpg on my morning commute.bigEZ said:so, in theory, the egr valve should have no effect on mpg's?
Believer,TDI Believer said:I've got 73K on my car. Never cleaned the EGR. Car consistently gets 41-43 mpg on my 45 mile morning commute. Car has not suffered any performance degradation (other than losing RCII when the ECU was changed). Now explain to me why I would want to remove my EGR valve?
The EGR valve is dumping exhaust into your intake manifold...and you want to make sure it can dump in as much as possible?
These things don't need to be cleaned. If it will make you all feel better with some placebo effect...go for it. Certainly there's something more useful you could do for your car.
Has your mpg dropped? Is there some compelling reason to believe you need to do this to your car...other than the fact that others have posted pics of ugly, sooty EGR valves?
Did you know that one person here left some solvent on his EGR valve after cleaning it and the resulting backfire from the vapors in his manifold blew a turbo seal?
Don't get me wrong...I'm all for preventive maintenance. The EGR valve doesn't require it.
You're misunderstanding my logic then. I change my air, fuel, and oil filters because I want unobstructed flow of clean air, fuel, and oil in my engine. I'd rather obstruct the flow of exhaust and soot into my intake. If I could totally block the EGR without throwing a CEL, I'd do it.Peoria_TDI said:Based on your reasoning and logic, "These things don't need to be cleaned", why change your air filter, fuel filter, oil filter, or oil? Why, because if you don't, they will become clogged. My .02...Hopefully someone with more expertise on this issue will chime in.
Relax. I think you are taking this all a little too seriously. I think we can agree to disagree without getting personal .TDI Believer said:I've looked at mine. Nothing is blocking the flow of air.
Go ahead and pull yours apart and clean it. I don't care.