Fellas,

I have an SES light that has come on. I took the car to the dealership and they informed me that it's the egr valve that is stuck. They wanted $440 to repair. After a quick assesment of what the EGR does I determined with wasn't $440 worth of urgent.

Is it difficult to change out the EGR valve yourself?

Does someone have a walk through?

Walt

 

The EGR stands for Exhaust Gas Recirculation. Exhaust gas is routed back into the combustion chamber because the exhausted air is much hotter than the intake air (try touching a muffler sometime). By sending warmer gas into the combustion chamber, the air/fuel mix does not have to do as much work to heat up, and your engine runs more efficiently.

As far as fixing it yourself, it's an electronic part. I'd say you're better off having a mechanic or experienced friend do it for you.

 

OK so it's something that I should let a pro handle but not necessarily the dealer.

Again the dealership wants $440 for the "repair". They are saying that it will take 5 hours to complete. I find that to be utter crap. I just can't see their mechanics spending 5 hours under the hood of my car repairing something they've done 100's of times over. I don't mind paying for work that's actually done but arbitrarily charging me for 5 hours times $70 per hour is bogus.

A local foreign car place said at the most worst case scenario it would be $340.

I hate when the SES light comes on....It just means it's time for the dealer to make some money.

 

if you know where it is.. just do it yourself.......

 

that is incorrect, all but the first part.

the EGR valve sends exhaust gas back ot the CC so the combustion temperatures are cooler, thus reducing NOx formation. its an emissions control device, the engine doesnt run 'better' with it, in fact, if you were to open it at idle, the idle would get rough, possibly enough to cause a stall.

Walt, the suggested CP labor time for EGR valve replacement on a 00 maxima is 1.8 hours.

add a 1 hour diagnostic fee to that, and its 2.8 at MOST.

but what code did they pull? is it stuck open, or stuck closed?

 

Technically speaking...

EGR serves one purpose and one purpose only. That purpose is to reduce Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx). Undernormal combustion, Nitrogen(N2)Oxygen (O2) in the air and Hydrocarbons (HC) in the fuel combind into water(H2O) Carbon dioxide (CO2) and the Nitrogen remains unchanged. Under very hot combustion temperatures, the Nitrogen reacts with the other two byproducts and forms Nitrogen oxide (NO). After being released into the atmosphere, it picks up another Oxygen and becomes Nitrogen dioxide (NO2). In the presence of sunlight, it combines with other compounds like Hydrocarbons and forms Smog. Since exhaust gas is inert (very stable) it doesn’t burn again. So by being introduced into the combustion chamber, it will lower combustion chamber temps enough so that the Nitrogen doesn’t react with the other compounds and is passed unchanged out the tailpipe thus not contributing to smog. Now, since exhaust gas doesn’t burn, it doesn’t exactly help with combustion. At higher RPM’s, this really isn’t noticable,
but at idle, the reintroduction of exhaust gas will cause a very rough idle and can cause stalling if to much is introduced into the combustion chamber.

Read the post... it said nothing about the "combustion tempature" it said
"because the exhausted air is much hotter than the intake air". Just wanted to clarify.

 

Emissions aside, wouldn't you get more HP disconnecting the EGR completely. Everyone wants a true cold air intake and this seems like it's just heating up the fuel\air mixture which would lower HP, wouldn't it?

 

To change that out, I think you need to pull the composite upper intake manifold.

There are about a million vaccume lines, two HUGE PIA bolts in the back right next to the firewall, and the bolts in the front center of the intake manifold that thread into the lower intake manifold love to strip out the hole when you remove the bolt.

If you can find someone willing to do it for $350, let them do it.

 

Very little HP gain, and you get an SES that will not go away, that makes your car suck gas like there is no tomorrow and in turn hurts performance. I have learned the hard way, keep it working perfectly.

 

It's not a fun job and it's often the ports that are clogged, not a bad valve.

 

In my opinion you should leave it up to someone else unless you have alot of free time and feel very comfortable doing it. The price quote does seem high but, you need someone who knows what they are doing to get it done right.