Not Always The Egr

[2LD4DVerso]

Hi all,

I had performance issues, low power and excessive black smoke on acceleration. mechanic said it was the egr but was heading on hols and suggested i clean it in the meantime. As I was going on hols myself and needed more power to pull the caravan, I cleaned the valve. it wasn't that bad. it cleaned up well after soaking in thinners and a good scrub with a toothbrush. it moved freely by hand so reassembled and reinstalled, but no big improvement.

I unplugged it (electrical connection) and with the help of a fuel cleaner and a good drive, the power came back. Holiday over and the car had a good workout. I presumed the actuator on the EGR was not working the valve. I was going to see if I could prove this theory before buying a new valve, so I took the valve off again, and was very surprised what I saw. A double measure of engine oil spilled out from the top chamber!

Because the valve was unplugged it never opened which trapped the oil. So I guess the EGR valve works perfecrly fine.

Now I just need to figure out how the oil is getting there and how to fix that. Any ideas out there ??