EGR delete on a diesel is the smartest thing you can do WITH a good tune. Better yet lose the DPF as well. I don't have any beef with a good performing Cat but the non serviceable DPF and EGR's in general are terrible ideas. Malone tuning does a FANTASTIC tune on TDI's if you want to delete these. I personally own 2 2015 Golf TDI SEL's and 1 Jetta Wagon TDI and all 3 have the full delete with Malone tuning's stage 2 tune. Zero issues with it other than some clutch slip when I hammer on it at high rpm. Best of all the spongy "gas" pedal is instant response now. You probably don't even notice that now but man, when you delete the EGR, DPF, etc, and all that bad tuning off the vehicle it spins up like a high performance outboard on a ski boat. Stock these vehicles have pathetic tuning for what that engine can do, it's painful for me to drive a stock tdi now, there is a profound delay between hitting the "gas" and for the vehicle to respond. Pepped up with a simple tune and EGR/DPF delete these engines can out race a LOT of vehicles.
The EGR is bad because it soots up everything in the intake. It should be called the heart disease valve because that is exactly what it does to your intake until the engine won't run properly at all. It's bad for the turbo too with all that soot flying through the engine.
The DPF is bad because now you have to run this crappy oil that has a lot less zinc and other goodies that are found in high quality oils. Basically you have to sacrifice engine longevity running a crappy oil to protect the DPF from zinc and other additive accumulation that would clog it since that will not burn off in a regen. Furthermore, the DPF also makes the car squirt raw diesel in the exhaust cycle. This wastes diesel, it deglazes the cylinder walls of oil, and it ends up in the oil pan diluting the inferior 507/504 oil you have to run with an intact DPF. Semi's can be found with serviceable DPF's that can easily be removed for periodic cleaning like any other serviceable filter. This is what VW should have done but instead they put a non serviceable one in the most horrific, tight, and pain in the rear spot you could possibly sandwich this thing into.
Does this void your warranty taking this stuff off? Hell yes. However, from my experience VW is the absolute worst company on the planet for honoring their warranty. I bought a 99.5 TDI Jetta that had the glow plug relay go out with 4k miles on the engine, under 2 years old. I bought that car brand new with a 10/100k drivetrain warranty and they would not pay for nor discount the $900 repair to replace the defective glow plug relay because it was a "consumable item, like spark plugs." That is verbatim what 3 dealerships in 3 different cities and the corporate office told me. I swore I wouldn't own another vw again after that, sold the car, and spoke ill of vw's for 15 years after that .. only rejoining tdi ownership after I learned a lot of skills fixing just about anything on my own cars. I'd rather have a car that has not been "abused" by inferior motor oil, diesel accumulation in the inferior motor oil, a heavily clogged intake system that creates a LOT of unnecessary back pressure on the piston rings, and possibly damage to the turbo from loose soot from the EGR breaking off and hitting the blades at high rpms. When I did the delete my cars all rolled coal the first couple times I hit the pedal for about 20 seconds until it blew out. After that initial blow out of whatever it was though none of these cars emit visible smoke at all at idle or while driving during warm temps. I haven't had these through a winter yet so not sure about cold starts.
Per the rules we have to say this so adding this below:
- These modifications are a violation of federal emissions regulations
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