You’ve likely already heard of the renowned EGR valve, the anti-pollution valve. It is not usually appreciated by motorists because it tends to cause more concerns than anything else… In actual fact, according to the use you are going to make of your car, it can become congested and bring about you a lot of complications. If this is the case, you are likely wondering how to clean the EGR valve of your Chevrolet Suburban ? Don’t get worried, we’ve written this article content to help you with this operation. To accomplish this, we will first look at the goal of the EGR valve, then what are the failures that the EGR valve of your Chevrolet Suburban can provoke and at last the section that will likely interest you the most, how to clean the EGR valve Chevrolet Suburban?

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How to Clean your Chevrolet Suburban EGR Valve: Role and Operation

Role of the EGR valve

The EGR valve of your car has been integrated to diesel engines mainly to lower pollution emitted by automobiles and to fulfill EURO requirements on Chevrolet Suburban . It will as a consequence influence the quality of exhaust gas output and eliminate toxic particles, mainly Nitrogen Oxide.

Operation of the EGR valve

Before we learn how to clean the EGR valve on your Chevrolet Suburban , we will check out how it functions. As described just before, its task is to clean the exhaust fumes, so it will be positioned at the engine outlet, thanks to a valve, it will be able to return the unburned exhaust gases to the engine for a second burn which will eliminate all unburned toxic particles. It will perform mainly at low speed because at high speed the combustion is sufficient to burn all these gases.

How to clean your Chevrolet Suburban EGR valve: Identifying faults

The EGR valve, nevertheless very effective to limit the pollution emissions of your Chevrolet Suburban , will unfortunately tend to clog up because of soot/gas deposits that will build up in its system, which will ultimately risk blocking the functions of the valve, until completely blocking the engine, here are the symptoms that a defective EGR valve on your Chevrolet Suburban can bring about:

  • Motor light on
  • Performance loss
  • Technical inspection rejected
  • Black fumes
  • Vehicle that grazes at low speed
  • Low RPM settings

How to clean your Chevrolet Suburban EGR valve: In practice

And now we’ll start the section you are most excited about, how to clean the EGR valve of your car. Here are the two ways that you can use.

Do it on your own

How to clean your Chevrolet Suburban EGR valve system: Without dismantle

Nevertheless this approach is less effective, it is however possible to consider a “rough” cleaning of your EGR valve, actually, you will only need to use fuel additives, equivalent to the products used to clean the injection. These particular solutions must be injected into the running engine, at the right operating temperature, diluted in about 20 litres of fuel and run the engine for 3 or 4 minutes in high rev to clean the EGR valve of your Chevrolet Suburban.

How to clean your car EGR valve: With disassembly

Here is the most beneficial approach, which will require sufficient access to the EGR valve to do the operation without help. If so, the operation is fairly simple. You will need to disconnect the electromagnet from the EGR valve, remove the few screws that hold it in place, and remove it. Once these guidelines are accomplished, now comes the time for cleaning. To do this, you will need to use a product such as solvent, petrol, oven cleaning product, which you will leave to act for ten minutes, then scrape off the rest using a scraper, finish cleaning with wire brush. If you want to go further, you can even clean the two conduits on which it is connected which may be scorched, for this, use a scraper and a vacuum cleaner to avoid dropping deposits in the conduits. You will only have to reassemble it and you will have finished cleaning the EGR valve of your Chevrolet Suburban.

Have it done by a professional

If, your EGR valve is not reachable because of the series or the engine of your car and if removing it would cause too many problems (removing too many elements that hinder access for example), how to clean the EGR valve of your Chevrolet Suburban? In this case, it would be better rather than launching yourself into an overly complex operation, you turn to an auto mechanic. He will be able to do the job more cleanly and will be able, if required, to change the valve if it is dead. The cost of cleaning according to the difficulty of access is between 70 and 300 €.

Remove the EGR valve of your Chevrolet Suburban

At last, a number of people make a more radical decision to limit the risk of a failed valve. Rather than cleaning the EGR valve of their Chevrolet Suburban, they simply choose to block it in the closed position. This manipulation will have the consequence of greatly increasing the pollution emitted by the car, of no longer complying with pollution criteria, of having an engine warning light all day on and finally risk fouling the engine. We highly advise against making this choice. If you have other questions or want to learn more about your car, don’t think twice to take a look at our dedicated page.

If you need more tutorials on the Chevrolet Suburban, go to our Chevrolet Suburban category.