EGR error 1406

Sep 20, 2005 6 Replies

Got a service engine soon light about a 2months ago.. took off the egr valve and found it to be really carboned up. Cleaned the ports and the manafold and put the old valve back on. It ran for about a month and the same problem again.. Replaced with a new valve and another cleaning.. after 30 days got the same error today. What can cause this?? It must be something that is causing the carbon build up?? gas?? plugs?? throttle body?? Air Filter?? The car runs good and get like 38MPG.. 96 saturn sc2



How much oil is the vehicle consuming? Is the PCV valve functioning properly?

I had cleaned out my son's EGR ('96 SL1) and it fixed the problem for about

15K miles. I then broke down and we replaced the EGR with a new one. We only have about 5-10K miles since then so I can't tell you if the problem will return.

I am assuming you had the SEL code scanned and it indicted the EGR (code 32, IIRC) so you know this is the culprit?

Bob

the code was P1406 We are tunung it today and changing the pvc and plugs

What was the rate of consumption? Dont use an aftermarket PCV Valve as it wont likely have a good tolerance. Some people get by cleaning the original valve with brake clean every now and then. If you know how to decarbonize an engine you might try that. Be forewarned doing it wrong can hyrdolock an engine...

yes I read the stuff on seafoam but don't think I'll do that.. Use to do it many mnay years ago with a car and a carburetor using a product call mobile upperlube. Just manully held the throttle open and poured it down the barrel ever so slowly trying not to kill the engine.. All kinds of white smoke would come out the exhaust and you would keep this up until you had gone through the pint. Worked great but things are different now a days.

GM has what they call Top engine cleaner. You dont pour it in on new cars. You dump it into a clean container, fill the bottle it came in with clean water and add that to the container. Then you get a rubber hose and find a vacuum port near the TB and let the engine suck it in from there (while the engines warm of course). Someone has to hold the engine at 2000rpms and once its emptied out, shut the car off, hook the vacuum hose back up, then take off down the street and hope a cop doesnt pull you over for the cloud you're making. It still works great even these days.

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