EGR - Death to it.
 

So, Recent purchase of a 170k xc70 d5. After getting rid of my diesel 940... I must say a d5 is a breath of fresh air.
Apart from removing the 170k worth of accumulated shmoo from the EGR and getting it "deactivated" I then changed the oil to a cheap 5w30, Ran that for 3-500 miles, I forget... Then dropped that and changed the filter again.
The oil coming out was black, but not as black as I would expect for an EGR deactivated vehicle.
In goes liquimoly (Thanks autodoc) and along comes 2000 miles of motorway and A road madness.
Oil is still very clear, On an EGR'd car that oil would've been black in 50 miles.
Imagine the longevity on modern diesels if they weren't forced to breathe their own f@rts!

Yes, I know, MOT - It passed. That's all that counts!

Well yeah, if you ignore your car's now massively increased NOx emissions triggering respiratory problems such as asthma attacks in vulnerable people.

Oh, the irony!

NOx has direct and indirect effects on human health. It can cause breathing problems that can be fatal, headaches, chronically reduced lung function, eye irritation, loss of appetite and conteibute to prematurely eroded teeth. Indirectly, it can affect humans by damaging the ecosystems they rely on in water and on land—harming animals and plants.

In short its nasty stuff, and anything that reduces these emissions are a very good thing indeed. As it goes EGRs are actually very effective at reducing NOx emissions, and can do so by over 80%.

The reasons its all clagged up is because people insist on using diesels for short journeys, which is highly inappropriate. Thats operator error, not a problem with the design of a fault with the car.

Since 2019 removal or disabling of an EGR is an MOT failure, so I wouldn't boast about the new ticket - if the tester had any means of knowing he would have failed you.

I've had the unenviable experience of giving CPR to a 13 year old girl who was having an asthma attack, one of my neighbours daughters, and despite my best efforts she passed away. Anything that deliberately increases pollution in a manner that is directly injurious to medically vulnerable people goes beyond merely selfish and into the downright nasty. Shame on you.

Mileage checking the vehicle, along with questions for previous owner, it was used as a long distance driver, quite evident by its service records jumping nearly 20k a year.
The state of the egr preclean would've been spewing out more emissions than its current clean state. With more dpf regens occurring than normal.
Since its repair, I've experienced one passive regen, with soot filter pretty much remaining at 3g estimated via vida.


I'm sorry you had to experience such.

Then why are some diesel manufacturers able to get their vehicles under all nox and emissions standards without even an emission system installed?
Cummins 6bt engines don't even use a catalyst or egr and yet can pass emissions with minimal nox easily?

You never experienced my d24tic on idle. You could wipe the particulate off the following vehicles.

If it makes you feel better should I go and get a readout of its emissions?

It passed, it was in spec.
I think if you looked at the state of other diesels, they spew out more pollutants than a de-egr'd vehicle that's quite frankly better maintained.

Never mention Egr dpf or any other emissions tweak on this forum.
You will only get the Emissions police and the Greta's of this world with poor little Johnies lungs etc etc.
Glad it's running better !!next Dpf delete😂😂
Que the backlash😂😂

You could have simply fixed the allegedly failed EGR valve. Disabling the EGR flow in the manner described would not have improved the particulate emissions. NOx control and particulate control are separate issues with independent mitigations.

In fact I would suggest that the DPF is clearly not doing its job.

But you don't have a readout of the NOx emissions. Again you appear to be confusing NOx and particulate emissions.

It passed only because NOx emissions are not tested during the MoT. Nevertheless disabling vehicle emission control systems should result in a fail, as the vehicle is now illegal to use on UK roads. If the MoT tester had spotted that an emission system had been disabled (e.g. a visible blanking plate on the EGR valve) then a fail should have been given and the vehicle reported to VOSA. And again you have confused particulate emissions and NOx emissions...

I thought I was safe, it was pension day!
I'll keep quiet about my hid and led hybrid concoction in reflector housings along with using my foglights as sidelights too then...
Back to the technical section I go 😂

You need to understand combustion physics. In very, very simplified terms, the bulk of modern engines run very lean to maximise fuel economy and reduce CO2 emissions. This is fine, but lean running has the unwanted side effect of increasing NOx emissions.

Not a problem really on any engine prior to roughly the late 80's when lean-burn started to become common place, and still not a problem on large capacity, low specific output motors like the Cummins coal burners, which simply don't knock out NOx in the same manner.

If an engine has an EGR its because it really does need it.

Air pollution kills 40,000 people a year in the UK. This is roughly 7% of all annual deaths in the country, which shows how serious a matter it is. This is more than double the numbers killed road accidents, suicide, and illegal drug related deaths combined.

So aside from the very serious public health aspect, it is also illegal. Neither of these things are remotely funny.

You see if you find it so amusing after you've given CPR to a child who is dying from an asthma attack. That has lived with me every single day for 6 years, and it is not even remotely amusing or worthy of joshing.

It wasn't a 'tweak'. It was a disablement.

Disabling vehicle emission control systems is illegal so no, it shouldn't be mentioned. At best, disabling the EGR and/or gutting the DPF is cheapskate bodgery to save a few quid by owners who can't properly afford to maintain their car, at worst it's environmental thuggery with little real benefit for the vehicle owner.

In this case it would have been better to have simply cleaned the possibly sticky EGR valve, something I did to my previous Honda for free.