You’ve most likely already heard of the well-known EGR valve, the anti-pollution valve. It is not generally appreciated by motorists because it has a tendency to cause more problems than anything else… In reality, dependent on the use you are going to make of your automobile, it can become congested and trigger you a lot of complications. If this is the situation, you are most likely wanting to know how to clean the EGR valve of your Subaru Impreza ? Don’t stress, we’ve prepared this article content to help you with this operation. To achieve this, we will first take a look at the purpose of the EGR valve, then what are the failures that the EGR valve of your Subaru Impreza can cause and at last the section that will most likely concern you the most, how to clean the EGR valve Subaru Impreza?

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How to Clean your Subaru Impreza EGR Valve: Role and Operation

Role of the EGR valve

The EGR valve of your car has been added to diesel engines mostly to reduce pollution released by vehicles and to match EURO specifications on Subaru Impreza . It will therefore influence the quality of exhaust gas output and reduce toxic particles, mainly Nitrogen Oxide.

Operation of the EGR valve

Before we discover how to clean the EGR valve on your Subaru Impreza , we will take a look at how it functions. As seen before, its mission 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 reduce all unburned toxic particles. It will function principally at low speed because at high speed the combustion is enough to burn all these gases.

How to clean your Subaru Impreza EGR valve: Identifying faults

The EGR valve, although very beneficial to limit the pollution emissions of your Subaru Impreza , will unfortunately tend to clog up because of soot/gas deposits that will build up in its system, which will finally risk obstructing the operation of the valve, until entirely blocking the engine unit, here are the signs of illness that a faulty EGR valve on your Subaru Impreza can bring about:

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

How to clean your Subaru Impreza EGR valve: In practice

And now we’ll commence the section 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 Subaru Impreza EGR valve system: Without taking it apart

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, equivalent 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 Subaru Impreza.

How to clean your car EGR valve: With disassembly

Here is the more effective approach, which will require enough access to the EGR valve to conduct 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 done, now comes the time for cleaning. To accomplish 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 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 Subaru Impreza.

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 problems (removing too many parts that hinder access for example), how to clean the EGR valve of your Subaru Impreza? 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 accomplish the job more cleanly and will be able, if necessary, 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 Subaru Impreza

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 Subaru Impreza, they just prefer to block it in the closed position. This treatment will have the consequence of greatly increasing the pollution released by the automobile, of no longer complying with pollution requirements, of having an engine warning light all day on and eventually risk fouling the engine. We highly suggest against making this choice. If you have other questions or want to learn more about your car, don’t hesitate to take a look at our dedicated page.

If you need more guides on the Subaru Impreza, go to our Subaru Impreza category.