You’ve almost certainly previously been aware of the popular EGR valve, the anti-pollution valve. It is not usually appreciated by drivers because it tends to develop more trouble than anything else… In actual fact, determined by the use you are going to make of your vehicle, it can become clogged and trigger you a lot of concerns. If this is the case, you are almost certainly concerned about how to clean the EGR valve of your Mercedes Benz Sprinter ? Don’t worry, we’ve made this article to help you with this process. To do this, we will initially take a look at the goal of the EGR valve, then what are the failures that the EGR valve of your Mercedes Benz Sprinter can cause and finally the part that will almost certainly concern you the most, how to clean the EGR valve Mercedes Benz Sprinter?

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How to Clean your Mercedes Benz Sprinter EGR Valve: Role and Operation

Role of the EGR valve

The EGR valve of your car has been added to diesel engines mainly to lower pollution emitted by cars and to meet EURO specifications on Mercedes Benz Sprinter . It will consequently control the quality of exhaust gas output and get rid of toxic particles, mainly Nitrogen Oxide.

Operation of the EGR valve

Before we discover how to clean the EGR valve on your Mercedes Benz Sprinter , we will check out how it works. As seen before, its goal is to clean the exhaust gases, 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 get rid of all unburned toxic particles. It will work mostly at low speed because at high speed the combustion is enough to burn all these gases.

How to clean your Mercedes Benz Sprinter EGR valve: Identifying faults

The EGR valve, despite the fact very important to limit the pollution emissions of your Mercedes Benz Sprinter , will unfortunately tend to clog up because of soot/gas deposits that will build up in its system, which will inevitably risk obstructing the operation of the valve, until totally blocking the engine, here are the symptoms that a faulty EGR valve on your Mercedes Benz Sprinter can trigger:

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

How to clean your Mercedes Benz Sprinter EGR valve: In practice

And now we’ll commence the part you are most serious about, how to clean the EGR valve of your car. Here are the two techniques that you can use.

Do it yourself

How to clean your Mercedes Benz Sprinter EGR valve system: Without dismantle

Nevertheless this process is less efficient, it is however possible to consider a “rough” cleaning of your EGR valve, in fact, you will only need to use fuel additives, equivalent 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 Mercedes Benz Sprinter.

How to clean your car EGR valve: With disassembly

Here is the best process, which will require enough access to the EGR valve to execute the operation on your own. If so, the procedure 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 achieved, 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 as well 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 Mercedes Benz Sprinter.

Have it done by a professional

If, your EGR valve is not accessible because of the series or the engine of your car and if removing it would cause too many complications (removing too many auto parts that hinder access for example), how to clean the EGR valve of your Mercedes Benz Sprinter? In this 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 do 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 Mercedes Benz Sprinter

At last, some people make a more radical decision to limit the risk of a failed valve. Instead of cleaning the EGR valve of their Mercedes Benz Sprinter, they simply choose to block it in the closed position. This treatment will have the consequence of greatly increasing the pollution emitted by the vehicle, of no longer complying with pollution requirements, of having an engine warning light all day on and in the end 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 hesitate to check out our dedicated page.

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