EGR issues yearly flushes needed

[Meda]

Hi all,

Bought my bitdi in 2020 at 40k miles(67 plate) Few months after not doing much driving i had engine (EGR) lights on (P046C00, P040100). Thought it made sense as i did not drive enough and no motorway miles really. Then i started using it mainly on motorways and i had to have a flush every year at least. All done at dealership. I read a bunch of threads on this and there seems to be a lot of issues with these. My oil consumption is slightly higher than expected but that is a biTDI. VW have now taken photos and quantities added to monitor, and it’s not excessive per se but on the higher end. Every time i take it in with these fault they say nothing wrong w egr system as all tests are fine but it is just clogged. I am finding it hard to understand why a self cleaning (in theory) system gets clogged when i mainly drive it over 65mph! The light is now on again, after doing 2k miles in 4 days most of which were over 65mph. It seems that it always gets clogged after long drives.
I am running out of ideas what to do. I understand if no errors on EGR system there is no point in changing it but there must be a reason and a solution to prevent this. a flush i think is now £500. Surely, if they designed something poorly we shouldn’t have to pay to fix it every year…

Anyways, a bit of a rant, but any suggestions/ideas on what to do will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[DXX]

Hi all,

Bought my bitdi in 2020 at 40k miles(67 plate) Few months after not doing much driving i had engine (EGR) lights on (P046C00, P040100). Thought it made sense as i did not drive enough and no motorway miles really. Then i started using it mainly on motorways and i had to have a flush every year at least. All done at dealership. I read a bunch of threads on this and there seems to be a lot of issues with these. My oil consumption is slightly higher than expected but that is a biTDI. VW have now taken photos and quantities added to monitor, and it’s not excessive per se but on the higher end. Every time i take it in with these fault they say nothing wrong w egr system as all tests are fine but it is just clogged. I am finding it hard to understand why a self cleaning (in theory) system gets clogged when i mainly drive it over 65mph! The light is now on again, after doing 2k miles in 4 days most of which were over 65mph. It seems that it always gets clogged after long drives.
I am running out of ideas what to do. I understand if no errors on EGR system there is no point in changing it but there must be a reason and a solution to prevent this. a flush i think is now £500. Surely, if they designed something poorly we shouldn’t have to pay to fix it every year…

Anyways, a bit of a rant, but any suggestions/ideas on what to do will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

The EGR system is not self cleaning, perhaps you are confused with the DPF which is an emission system but not related?
The EGR unit (valve and cooler) have a finite life due to getting clogged with carbon.
The cooler will begin to clog from day 1, imagine a set of tubes gradually getting smaller in diameter due to fouling, the surface area gradually reduces with the bore diameter. The result being that the cooler clogs at a higher rate near the end of it’s useful life than when new.
The rate of fouling of the EGR cooler is rapidly increased when the EGR valve gets fouled and no longer seals when it should be closed. This results in exhaust gases being re-circulated the whole time that the engine is running.

More seriously the inlet valves, piston rings, engine oil and DPF are being heavily contaminated with re-circulated soot and hard carbon. One of the best ways to kill an engine.
Treat the EGR unit as a consumable, don’t expect too much as the engineering is crap with no extra capacity to allow for fouling.
Flushing is simply BS, nearly all the carbon in the cooler is hard carbon and can only be removed with some very aggressive chemicals that you don’t want anywhere near your engine internals.

Renew is the answer.

 

[Meda]

Thank you so much for this explanation, i have been trying to understand this for a while. Initially i thought the egr is not self cleaning but they kept telling me the blockage it’s because of short trips, evidently this is not the case. i raised the concern about the engine damage and they said the two are totally separate and EGR or its gasses have no connection to the engine. I am thankful for your explanation, and slightly concerned about their lack of knowledge. I am not going with a flush again will replace ASAP! Thanks a lot, much appreciated

 

[Ali-G]

I see you're also in Bristol.
I had my EGR deleted by Vass in Bath, have a chat with them about it.