Sorting cars out when you're out from 8-7 is a nightmare..you basically have to book time off. Im lucky that the ford garage I use is 3 mins down the road from where I live and only a 25min drive from where I work. Ive only heard good things about Kia Cee'ds, will be interesting to see how you get on with it. Oh yeah I forgot the insurance system has now changed…so 17 out of 50 is pretty good.

I did get my car back yesterday…..BUT………... even though I spoke to 2 different people at my Ford garage and made it perfectly clear that I wanted to keep the old EGR…they'd returned it to their main Ford parts place at Hedge End. The parts guy told me some long story as to why it had gone back which I didn’t even understand and was very apologetic. So then I was sceptical that they'd even changed it all (fortunatly they had cos I checked when I got home). So that was very annoying and wanted to have a good look at old EGR and get cracking on my EGR thesis ;-) And as yet the problem has not reoccured…but sometimes the car would run fine for a week then id suddenly have the problem so will have to wait a good 1-2 weeks before I finally give it the all-clear. It does run smoother and feel better so looking good so far.

To be fair I knew that when I bought the car last September that I was going to have to pay a bit out on it in terms of work cos it had done 88k at time of purchase….Now ive had the CAM belt, water pump, some valves and EGR valve replaced for £841 in total…which is a lot but I see it that by buying the car privately I probably saved about £1000…..from my research a garage would of charged a good £1000+ more for the car than I paid. So in a way I had £1000 in order to get it ship shape….which hopefully it now is. I don’t want anything else major to have to be replaced this year…..apart from possibily new break pads/discs at some point..but not too worried about them yet!

I would give the Hedge End a call and tell them you want your valve back! lol maybe contact your dealer again as well and make it clear you want it back. Technically its theft ;)

And I will certainly let you know how I get on with it. but 8-7 is a nightmare! Sod's law that I also work 1 - 2 weekends a month as well... Roll on Promotion!!!

had no luck with Hedge End....has annoyed me cos like u said its technically theft. I wont mind if this valve lasts 95k though!

you know on DPF Focus's its recommeded you give them a good run at 4500rpm for several mins on the motorway once or twice a month......is it recommeded that you do the same with non DPFs? just to keep the EGR clean? or would doing that not necessarily keep the EGR clean? I know you can take EGR's out and clean them but they are well hard to get out on the 2.0tdci MK2 Focuses. will take sum pics of my engine bay to show u where it is, i can barely gets my hands to it let alone take it out! hopefully i wont ever have to cos got a brand new one in there now but would be nice to keep it in best possible condition

Running your engine hot is always good, because it does help to move some contaminents of the engine, and most likely will help to keep the EGR valve clear - shame that you couldnt get your old valve back, just ask your dealer if they get one going to waste that they may have taken off any other car - ask them to keep it for you. Most likely they will say "Sure" and then you see them chuck one out...!

Running your engine hot is always good, because it does help to move some contaminents of the engine, and most likely will help to keep the EGR valve clear - shame that you couldnt get your old valve back, just ask your dealer if they get one going to waste that they may have taken off any other car - ask them to keep it for you. Most likely they will say "Sure" and then you see them chuck one out...!

Running your engine hot is always good, because it does help to move some contaminents of the engine, and most likely will help to keep the EGR valve clear - shame that you couldnt get your old valve back, just ask your dealer if they get one going to waste that they may have taken off any other car - ask them to keep it for you. Most likely they will say "Sure" and then you see them chuck one out...!

Yeah might actually try that...although it seems that they wisk off any EGR they take out of a car to a special place where nobody can get it back from haha.

Right i took some pics of my engine bay so people can see the set up of the MK2 2.0TDCI. It seems totally diferent from the MK1 engine...Ive seen that vid on youtube of the guy showing you how to clean EGR by spraying the EGR3 Valve cleaner in but duno how'd it do that on mine...

I think is my EGR! its impossible to get at....from this pic it looks like you can just get ya hands to it but you cant.

Heres a pic of my whole engine bay with arrow pointing to location of EGR......you cant actually see the EGR in this shot tho....just wanted people to see my whole engine