You’ve likely already heard about the well-known EGR valve, the anti-pollution valve. It is not generally appreciated by car owners because it tends to develop more concerns than anything else… Indeed, dependent on the use you are going to make of your car, it can become blocked and trigger you a lot of problems. If this is the situation, you are likely wanting to know how to clean the EGR valve of your Mazda MX 5 Miata ? Don’t worry, we’ve well prepared this article to help you with this task. To do so, we will first take a look at the purpose of the EGR valve, then what are the failures that the EGR valve of your Mazda MX 5 Miata can cause and at last the section that will likely appeal you the most, how to clean the EGR valve Mazda MX 5 Miata?

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How to Clean your Mazda MX 5 Miata EGR Valve: Role and Operation

Goal of the EGR valve

The EGR valve of your car has been integrated to diesel engines mostly to lower pollution emitted by cars and to meet EURO standards on Mazda MX 5 Miata . It will as a consequence control the quality of exhaust gas output and reduce toxic particles, mainly Nitrogen Oxide.

Operation of the EGR valve

Before we learn how to clean the EGR valve on your Mazda MX 5 Miata , we will take a look at how it works. As seen just before, its goal is to clean the exhaust fumes, 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 reduce all unburned toxic particles. It will function mainly at low speed because at high speed the combustion is sufficient to burn all these gases.

How to clean your Mazda MX 5 Miata EGR valve: Identifying faults

The EGR valve, despite the fact very effective to limit the pollution emissions of your Mazda MX 5 Miata , will unfortunately tend to clog up because of soot/gas deposits that will accumulate in its system, which will eventually risk blocking the functions of the valve, until entirely blocking the engine unit, here are the symptoms that a defective EGR valve on your Mazda MX 5 Miata can cause:

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

How to clean your Mazda MX 5 Miata EGR valve: In practice

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

Do it yourself

How to clean your Mazda MX 5 Miata EGR valve system: Without dismantle

Nevertheless this process 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, similar to the products used to clean the injection. These particular 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 Mazda MX 5 Miata.

How to clean your car EGR valve: With disassembly

Here is the best process, which will require sufficient access to the EGR valve to accomplish the treatment yourself. If so, the operation 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 finished, 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 also 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 Mazda MX 5 Miata.

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 elements that hinder access for example), how to clean the EGR valve of your Mazda MX 5 Miata? In this case, it would be better rather than launching yourself into an overly complex task, 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 dependent on the difficulty of access is between 70 and 300 €.

Remove the EGR valve of your Mazda MX 5 Miata

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 Mazda MX 5 Miata, they simply prefer to block it in the closed position. This modification will have the outcome 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 in the end 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 be reluctant to check out our dedicated page.

To discover more tips on the Mazda MX 5 Miata, take a look at the Mazda MX 5 Miata category.