Hey all, so from what I've seen, people here have said to stay away from Amazon (which I plan to), but I've actually found a very nice looking egr cooler on eBay for $60. Unfortunately I've been checking my local junkyards & it seems that everyone is strictly going after the egr valve first out of everything. The idea of my end is that I would like to get a clean egr cooler & pull out my current EGR valve and switch out the cooler (since it seems to take the longest to clean) & put the EGR valve back into the car. Am I being too greedy in terms of wanting to make things less complicated on my end? As we all know, I have no idea when the next 3rd Gen Prius will land in my local junkyard.
That's pretty much what I did. Even if you buy a dirty cooler and clean it, the car isn't down while you do it. Still just changing it out was enough of a knuckle-busty weekend job.
But It! That's a great price! Oven cleaner and a pressure washer is the fastest and easiest way to clean it. It will save you a lot of time. Just remove the dirty one, install the clean one. Simple and easy and quick. You could try the other various ways of cleaning the cooler like soaking.... Because it can sit for weeks.....
What's your time worth? You can get a new EGR cooler for $155: TOYOTA Genuine EGR Pipe Cooler LEXUS CT200H PRIUS ZVW30 ZVW35 ZVW41 25601-37010 | eBay
Which means, he could possibly get 2.5 of them for that price. There are no moving parts. It's stainless steel. Clean it, and it's good as new...
I bought new when it coded a 175k. I used a cleaned oem the second time at 305k. It was preventative at 305k; no codes then. I reported a $102 new oem on ebay a few days ago.
@avoice217 whats the miles on it? If it’s not too far along, just getting it out as early in the process as possible, and filled with a carbon- eating solution, it shouldn’t hold you up. I’d recommend concentrated Oxi-Clean (powdered laundry additive) for minor to moderate build-up, and substitute lye solution for heavy build-up. 4-5 hour long soaks interspersed with rinses should have it clean. With heavy build-up working a copper wire through may be needed. The smaller end hole is roughly 21 mm diameter; worthwhile to have a suitable, white rubber (inert) stopper on hand. Oxi-Clean is mildly caustic, while lye is strongly so: use caution, and only use these on the (stainless steel) cooler. The rest of the components are relatively easy to clean, just with brake cleaner, brushes and rags. have a look at the top two links in my signature, for EGR cleaning info. (On a phone turn it landscape to see signatures)
