Cause
Faulty EGR valve
The exhaust gas recirculation valve at fault as a unit — its motor, its position sensor, or the valve as an assembly. It is the general case, and it should be reached after the specific ones: carbon binding the pintle, a blocked passage, a blocked cooler and a damaged seat all produce the same flow and performance codes far more often, and each is cheaper.
Establish that the valve itself has failed before replacing it. A valve that moves smoothly through its full travel by hand, and whose position feedback tracks the command, is not the fault — the restriction is downstream in the passages or the cooler, which is the single commonest reason a replaced valve changes nothing.
It is distinct from the recirculation throttle valve, which is an intake throttle used to create the pressure difference that drives the flow. The two carry similar names, sit in different places and fail differently, and confusing them sends the work to the wrong part of the engine. Where the valve is genuinely at fault the electrical symptoms are usually clear: a winding out of specification, a position sensor that drops out mid-sweep, or a motor that draws heavily against a free pintle.
Typically a moderate job.
Some of these codes mean you should stop driving
1 of the 2 codes this can cause indicate a fault where continuing to drive risks damage or is unsafe. Which one you have matters more than the cause does — read the code's own page before deciding.
Codes this can cause (2)
Codes where this is a likely explanation first, rather than merely a possible one.
Information, not instruction
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Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
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