You’ve likely previously heard about the famous EGR valve, the anti-pollution valve. It is not generally appreciated by drivers because it is likely to cause more trouble than anything else… In fact, according to the use you are going to make of your vehicle, it can become blocked and bring about you a lot of complications. If this is the situation, you are likely wanting to know how to clean the EGR valve of your Kia Rio ? Don’t be anxious, we’ve written this content page to help you with this operation. To achieve this, we will first take a look at the intent of the EGR valve, then what are the failures that the EGR valve of your Kia Rio can trigger and to finish the section that will likely concern you the most, how to clean the EGR valve Kia Rio?

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How to Clean your Kia Rio EGR Valve: Role and Operation

Goal of the EGR valve

The EGR valve of your car has been integrated to diesel engines principally to reduce pollution emitted by cars and to meet EURO specifications on Kia Rio . It will consequently control the quality of exhaust gas output and eradicate toxic particles, mainly Nitrogen Oxide.

Operation of the EGR valve

Before we learn how to clean the EGR valve on your Kia Rio , we will take a look at how it works. As seen before, its mission is to clean the exhaust fumes, so it will be placed 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 eradicate all unburned toxic particles. It will run principally at low speed because at high speed the combustion is sufficient to burn all these gases.

How to clean your Kia Rio EGR valve: Identifying faults

The EGR valve, although very effective to limit the pollution emissions of your Kia Rio , will sadly tend to clog up because of soot/gas deposits that will accumulate in its system, which will inevitably risk blocking the operation of the valve, until totally blocking the engine unit, here are the signs of illness that a defective EGR valve on your Kia Rio can provoke:

  • Motor light on
  • Power loss
  • Technical assesment rejected
  • Black fumes
  • Car that grazes at low speed
  • Low RPM settings

How to clean your Kia Rio EGR valve: In practice

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

Do it yourself

How to clean your Kia Rio EGR valve system: Without taking it apart

Nevertheless this approach is less effective, it is however possible to consider a “rough” cleaning of your EGR valve, in reality, you will only need to use fuel additives, similar to the products used to clean the injection. These specific 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 Kia Rio.

How to clean your car EGR valve: With disassembly

Here is the most effective approach, which will require sufficient access to the EGR valve to do the operation yourself. If so, the process 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 simple steps are finished, now comes the time for cleaning. To get this done, 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 also clean the two canal 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 Kia Rio.

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 complications (removing too many parts that hinder access for example), how to clean the EGR valve of your Kia Rio? In cases like this, it would be better rather than launching yourself into an overly complex operation, you turn to an auto mechanic. He will be able to perform 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 Kia Rio

At last, some people make a more radical decision to limit the risk of a failed valve. Rather than cleaning the EGR valve of their Kia Rio, they simply choose to block it in the closed position. This manipulation will have the consequence of greatly increasing the pollution emitted by the vehicle, of no longer complying with pollution criteria, of having an engine warning light permanently on and eventually risk fouling the engine. We strongly recommend 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 want more tutorials on the Kia Rio, go to our Kia Rio category.