Evening all,

I have a new to me octavia II with nearly 150000 on the clock. It's a 4x4 model. Anyway the engine management light came on and when plugged in says egr insufficient air flow. I've had the egr cleaned the light was turned off but came on again about 15 miles of driving later. Car drives ok. I'm just wondering if I should get the egr mapped out and will mapping a car with 150000 miles on it be risky?

Any help will be appreciated!

Cleaning the EGR valve on an ageing diesel is always a good idea. I've done it twice on my 100000 mile car and its amazing how quickly it gets clogged up with recirculated sooty exhaust gases and crank case oil vapours! The airflow restriction can be pretty severe and affect performance considerably.

 

With my car I found out that cleaning the EGR valve only is not enough of a fix on its own. Straight after the EGR valve is the intake manifold and that will be as dirty and nasty as the EGR valve was before cleaning. You may indeed now have a clean EGR valve but the air trying to pass through it will be restricted by the manifold immediately after. Cleaning both the intake manifold (and the swirl flaps on the PD170 engine) as well as the EGR valve made a huge difference to my car. In particular the power at the top end was much improved as the car could get the airflow it needed to run well at high revs. I strongly suggest cleaning the intake manifold as well on your car and don't let some grease monkey try and tell you that you need to buy a new one either!

 

EGR valves (and DPFs for that matter) are typically a right pain in the diesel engine bay but good maintenance is a good way to mitigate against the problems. Also, these cars have a lot of electronic sensors that monitor things and it can be them that go on the wobble, not a mechanical component. It is tempting to try and remove/bypass troublesome components (e.g. mapping out the EGR) or increase vehicle performance by remapping. I'm wary of this approach as I think it best to get the standard equipment in as best condition as possible to see if that helps first, before going down the modification route. You may end up placing a higher workload on a sub-optimal (airflow restricted) engine. But of course this is personal opinion! If you want to get the EGR sucker mapped out then give it a try. that could be the best solution for you and your car.

 

Regards,

 

Excision