I took my car for 120k mile service (plugs,cool and, oil, throttle body, MAF). I asked them to clean the egr circuit. He was going to do it but showed me photos that the pipe and the interfaces to the Egr and the manifold. There was negligible carbon deposits. He suggested that we hold off. I held off and was shocked he didn’t take my money. His view: the heavy disassembly for cleaning is a risky job when the gas mileage is good, no startup rattle, no oil leak/consumption, and negligible carbon in the pipe. Looking for wisdom from the forum. Is my late 2015 exempt from EGR clogs? (I heard 2015 had a piston ring redesign). Am I lucky? Should I find a different mechanic?
Either you. have an honest technician or he didn't want to do it. It's rare when they don't want the money though. Did he pull the intake manifold and look at the egr holes? If he did, he should have cleaned them out. It would have only taken 10-15 minutes. The egr pipe is nothing, it will never get clogged. The cooler has small passages that do get clogged. Since the engine with the newest pistons/ring don't suffer with the sticking/clogging and blow by, the egr system doesn't suffer so much by clogging. It is NOT a "heavy" disassembly, nor a "risky" job.... For a good tech. And it's something you could do with a few tools. Perhaps he didn't know how to do it??? Does he have Toyota Hybrid experience? You have likely safe for many miles, maybe at 200,000 miles have it cleaned. The idea is to clean it BEFORE it clogs. Like changing engine oil/filter BEFORE it breaks down and fails.....
It would be reasonable to pull up the car's most recent EGR flow self-test result and look at that. Higher is better. We've been seeing results around 21 or 22 kPa for new or freshly squeaky cleaned systems. That is worth also doing, because it is such a short job, and because the way the car does the flow self-test really only gets at overall flow, and can't distinguish what's going on with those four separate ports.
... and around 18-19 kPa for my 2011 at considerably higher mileage, so clogging that early isn't inevitable, despite what certain pessimists like to say. I agree with others above that the intake manifold EGR ports should be cleared. That's much easier than the cooler.
3rd gen with 115k miles, I wouldn’t hesitate to: clean it. Don’t neglect the intake manifold; it has the final leg of the EGR passages. who is “he”? Presumably not a dealership? Has he got experience cleaning 3rd gen EGR? Id consider DIY if possible. See top two links in my signature for more info on the procedure (on a phone turn it landscape to see signatures).
