EGR Valve Question

[Clifford]

Hey all – I’ve been lurking on this forum for a while without registering getting some great information from everyone. Unfortunately I have a problem that I haven’t been able to find an answer to on here yet. If anyone could help me out that would be great! Here is my tale:

My trusty Jetta TDI died on me last week during my 1.5 hour commute to work. Since then I’ve had it into one shop that wanted $3,000 to replace the “clogged” catalytic converter and now a dealership whose diagnoses is prompting this post. After hearing the price breakdown from the first shop I had it towed home so that I could confirm the diagnosis and do the replacement/alteration work myself. I removed the cat and hooked an air supply to one end only to find that it was not actually clogged at all (even though I didn’t need to do this because I knew it wasn’t the cat when the car still wouldn’t turn over after the cat was disconnected). Since the only diagnosis I had was the cat and the fuel filter in the engine compartment looked clean I decided to take it to the professionals at the dealership.

The diagnosis I received was that it was a seized turbo (exhaust port) and a failed solenoid in the EGR Valve. Luckily the I purchased the car with an extended warranty which is covering the complete replacement of the turbo. The bad news is being that the EGR Valve is a part of the exhaust system the warranty company kindly deferred all costs associated with it to me. The cost of the part I was quoted is $400 with $600 for installation, to me (based on some great “how-to’s” I’ve found online) I think the installation cost is extremely high. I am hoping to tap all of your knowledge on this and determine if I am getting hosed on this deal or if it is going to save me a lot of time and headache (for those of you with experience). I do work for a civil construction company so I could potentially have access to their shop and tools but based on what I’ve seen this seems like a driveway job to me.

TL;DR My Jetta TDI is in the shop being diagnosed with a failed EGR Valve solenoid, is $400 (part) & $600 (labor) a reasonable quote?

Thanks for any help, and sorry if this landed in the wrong place!

Clifford

[speedracer1407]

Unfortunately, I can't offer much about how reasonable that price is, but I'd like to point out one thing, which you may already be aware of.

The EGR valve is also part of the emissions system. Certain components of all emissions systems are, by law, required to be covered under warranty for a number of years/miles. A friend of mine had an emissions issue on her mid-2000s Jeep a while back. My memory of the specifics is foggy, but it was something like 6-8 years and around 100K miles. Her specific component was NOT covered by this legally mandated warranty, so it was a moot point at the time, BUT we did learn that her dealer was unaware/playing dumb about the emissions warranty and claimed to have looked it up to confirm that it wasn't covered.

Information about federally mandated emissions warranties are available online (I'd look it up for you, but I can't at the moment), so it may be worth checking into it.....just in case.

[Clifford]

Thanks speedracer, I appreciate the information I will definitely look into that!

[Type_TDI]

Clifford, FWIW, the entire EGR system between the turbo and intake was replaced under warranty in my 2010 Golf at around 18k miles. I'm not sure what year your car is, but the EGR system has had revisions.