You’ve likely previously heard about the popular EGR valve, the anti-pollution valve. It is not always appreciated by drivers because it tends to cause more concerns than anything else… In fact, determined by 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 Kia Soul ? Don’t be anxious, we’ve written this content page to help you with this process. To do this, we will initially look at the intent of the EGR valve, then what are the failures that the EGR valve of your Kia Soul can reason and at last the section that will likely concern you the most, how to clean the EGR valve Kia Soul?
How to Clean your Kia Soul EGR Valve: Role and Operation
Purpose of the EGR valve
The EGR valve of your car has been integrated to diesel engines mainly to lower pollution released by vehicles and to fulfill EURO requirements on Kia Soul . 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 Soul , we will check out how it functions. As seen before, its goal is to clean the exhaust gases, so it will be located 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 operate mostly at low speed because at high speed the combustion is enough to burn all these gases.
How to clean your Kia Soul EGR valve: Identifying faults
The EGR valve, even though very beneficial to limit the pollution emissions of your Kia Soul , will sadly tend to clog up because of soot/gas deposits that will accumulate in its system, which will ultimately risk obstructing the functions of the valve, until totally blocking the engine unit, here are the symptoms that a defective EGR valve on your Kia Soul can trigger:
- Motor light on
- Performance loss
- Technical assesment rejected
- Black fumes
- Car that grazes at low speed
- Low RPM settings
How to clean your Kia Soul EGR valve: In practice
And now we’ll begin the section you are most excited about, how to clean the EGR valve of your car. Here are the two approaches that you can use.
Do it yourself
How to clean your Kia Soul EGR valve system: Without dismantle
Even though this approach is less efficient, it is however possible to consider a “rough” cleaning of your EGR valve, actually, you will only need to use fuel additives, similar to the products used to clean the injection. These specific products 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 Soul.
How to clean your car EGR valve: With disassembly
Here is the most beneficial approach, which will require enough access to the EGR valve to do the operation without help. If so, the process is fairly straightforward. 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 completed, now comes the time for cleaning. To make this happen, 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 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 Soul.
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 difficulties (removing too many parts that hinder access for example), how to clean the EGR valve of your Kia Soul? In such a case, it would be better rather than launching yourself into an overly complex process, you turn to an auto mechanic. He will be able to carry out the job more cleanly and will be able, if necessary, to change the valve if it is dead. The cost of cleaning determined by the difficulty of access is between 70 and 300 €.
Remove the EGR valve of your Kia Soul
Finally, some individuals make a more radical decision to limit the risk of a failed valve. Rather than cleaning the EGR valve of their Kia Soul, they simply choose to block it in the closed position. This modification will have the outcome of greatly increasing the pollution released by the car, of no longer complying with pollution requirements, of having an engine warning light all day on and finally risk fouling the engine. We strongly advise against making this choice. If you have other questions or want to learn more about your car, don’t be reluctant to check out our dedicated page.
To discover more tips on the Kia Soul, take a look at the Kia Soul category.
