You’ve most likely already heard about the famous EGR valve, the anti-pollution valve. It is not usually appreciated by motorists because it is likely to develop more problems than anything else… Indeed, determined by the use you are going to make of your automobile, it can become congested and cause you a lot of trouble. If this is the case, you are most likely wanting to know how to clean the EGR valve of your Volkswagen Beetle ? Don’t get worried, we’ve well prepared this article content to help you with this process. To accomplish this, we will first check out the goal of the EGR valve, then what are the failures that the EGR valve of your Volkswagen Beetle can bring on and finally the part that will most likely interest you the most, how to clean the EGR valve Volkswagen Beetle?

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How to Clean your Volkswagen Beetle EGR Valve: Role and Operation

Goal of the EGR valve

The EGR valve of your car has been integrated to diesel engines mainly to lower pollution released by cars and to meet EURO specifications on Volkswagen Beetle . It will therefore influence the quality of exhaust gas output and eradicate toxic particles, mainly Nitrogen Oxide.

Operation of the EGR valve

Before we discover how to clean the EGR valve on your Volkswagen Beetle , we will examine how it works. As seen before, its task 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 eradicate all unburned toxic particles. It will work mainly at low speed because at high speed the combustion is sufficient to burn all these gases.

How to clean your Volkswagen Beetle EGR valve: Identifying faults

The EGR valve, nevertheless very useful to limit the pollution emissions of your Volkswagen Beetle , 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 completely blocking the engine, here are the signs of illness that a faulty EGR valve on your Volkswagen Beetle can cause:

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

How to clean your Volkswagen Beetle EGR valve: In practice

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

Do it on your own

How to clean your Volkswagen Beetle EGR valve system: Without dismantle

Even though this technique 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 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 Volkswagen Beetle.

How to clean your car EGR valve: With disassembly

Here is the best technique, which will require sufficient access to the EGR valve to execute the treatment yourself. 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 steps are completed, 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 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 Volkswagen Beetle.

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 troubles (removing too many elements that hinder access for example), how to clean the EGR valve of your Volkswagen Beetle? 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 accomplish the job more cleanly and will be able, if required, 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 Volkswagen Beetle

Finally, some individuals make a more radical decision to limit the risk of a failed valve. Rather than cleaning the EGR valve of their Volkswagen Beetle, they simply choose to block it in the closed position. This modification will have the effect of greatly increasing the pollution released by the automobile, of no longer complying with pollution requirements, of having an engine warning light permanently on and ultimately 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.

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