EGR and intake clean - how far to go?
 

I've recently purchased a 2010 MY XC90 D5 with 115,000 on the clock.

I can see the engine is pretty much untouched, so I'm certain it's never had the intake gubbins taken apart and given a clean.

Can someone who's done this job before offer advice on how far to take matters? The main two things I'm mulling over are:

1) Whether it's worth taking the manifold off the top of the engine to remove the gunk as well:
- How likely is it to be so gunked that it has restricted flow, given the larger surface area vs the pipes?
- For the Euro 4, in plain English I believe this job means removing the rocker cover,, then replacing(?) and resealing the gasket (£30). Am I asking for trouble here?

2) Whether to remove the EGR cooler down the side of the engine, or skip it altogether? I arguably don't care about that bit - if anything I don't mind if it's blocked!

Not quite as easy as that.injectors need to be removed and replaced with new seals,injectors could be seized. Full pipes have to be removed,its advised to replace with new ones although people have been lucky and reused them. There is a sticky on here for replacing swirl flaps,quite a bit of info. Egr is a mare and again plenty of info on here.

Thanks camturbo, I can see that now.. injector clamp bolts go right through the manifold. It's a shame the rocker cover and manifold are one piece like that.

I made this post because although there are plenty of pics of blocked pipes etc on the forum, I've yet to see anyone comment on how beneficial cleaning the intake is as well, besides making it look nice.

IMO, major justification is needed for disturbing a still-working set of injectors on an engine with more than 100k miles. So I think I'll give cleaning the manifold a miss.

i recently did the obligatory Throttle Body / EGR clean on mine. Apart from the TB clean, the rest is pretty much ****ing in the wind - its quite clear the EGR is only the tip of the iceberg.

Before you do any big work, take off the rubber air intake pipe to the inlet manifold and look inside the pipework.
The rubber pipe is easy and non-destructive to remove.
No damage to anything, no new gaskets needed.
OK, it might be a bit tight and a bit stuck, but still the easiest thing to remove.


If the pipework looks pretty good with minimal deposits, then don't touch anything. Leave as-is.


If the observations show it is pretty bad, then it is decision time as to what you do and how far you go.