What is an EGR valve?

December 23, 2022

Damaged EGR valve

The most common reason the EGR valve can become damaged is due to contamination. The result of this contamination is that the valve no longer closes properly or the flow is not good enough. If you do a lot of short trips or drive a lot at low rpm, pollution is more likely to occur. In general, 100,000 kilometers is a reasonable average for the life of the EGR valve.

Broken EGR valve, how can you tell?

You can tell by the following that the EGR valve is out of order:

Black smoke from the exhaust

Having to refuel more often
Stalling engine
Less traction

Engine malfunction light comes on
Less power
The particulate filter gets clogged or slams shut

The inlet nozzle slams shut

We recommend that you do not continue driving with a damaged EGR valve. If you do, your car may suffer further damage. The particulate filter is an example of this. Therefore, the car will no longer be approved at the MOT.

EGR valve replacement

Charring is one of the main causes of EGR valve failure. Assembling and disassembling the valve takes a lot of time, but the valve itself is inexpensive. Due to high labor costs, replacing the EGR valve costs between 600 euros and 1,500 euros. So expensive joke. You can also choose to clean the EGR valve. Normally in this case, the entire intake circuit of the car is cleaned, because cleaning only the EGR valve is not sufficient.

Turn off EGR valve?

You can also disable the EGR, but we don’t recommend it. The EGR valve provides fuel economy, a less polluted engine and efficient combustion, and the engine is completely made to work with an EGR valve. You can’t turn off the EGR valve yourself. You can have this done by a specialist who will deactivate the valve through the engine computer. Also not unimportant: if you have this done, you are officially not allowed on the road.