P2413: Exhaust Gas Recirculation System Performance
What to do
Expect a rough idle, some hesitation, and an emissions test failure. If an EGR valve is quoted, ask whether the passages and the cooler are being cleaned as well. Carbon builds up in the pipework as much as in the valve, and a new valve fitted into blocked passages flows no better than the old one — that is the most common way money gets wasted on this code. Note that a valve can test as working correctly and still fail this, because the code is about flow across driving conditions rather than a single check.
What this code means
Exhaust gas recirculation is not delivering what was commanded across the range of conditions the module tests.
Almost all of these are carbon, and the reason is structural rather than accidental. The system's whole job is to take soot-laden exhaust gas and route it into a cool intake. Hot particulates meeting cooler metal is precisely the condition in which deposits form, so the passages, the valve seat and the cooler are coking up continuously by design. It is a wear item that happens to look like a component failure.
Which produces the mistake this page exists to prevent: replacing the valve and leaving the passages. A new valve fitted into a blocked port cannot flow any more than the old one did, and the code returns almost immediately — at which point the diagnosis gets doubted rather than the work. Cleaning the passages is usually the actual repair, and on many engines it is the larger part of the labour.
The pattern of use matters here in the same way it does for particulate filters and NOx sensors: short journeys never get the system hot enough for long enough to burn deposits off, so a car used for a mile at a time accumulates them far faster than one that does regular longer runs.
Distinguish from the flow codes at P0401 and P0402, which report insufficient or excessive flow at a point. This one is about the relationship between what was asked for and what happened across conditions, so it can fire on a system that passes a static test — which is worth knowing when a workshop reports the valve as operating correctly.
Likely causes
Start here
- Blocked EGR passages · moderate
- Carbon binding the EGR valve pintle · moderate
- Faulty EGR valve · moderate
Less common
- Blocked EGR cooler · specialist
- Faulty EGR position sensor · moderate
- Disconnected or leaking vacuum hose · easy
Symptoms
Components involved
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.
Community experience
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