pauld30

Has any one had an updated swirl flap fail on their 6 cylinder diesel engine.
if so what mileage please.
i understand if you have a dpf (diesel particle filter) shows in idrive, you have the updated flaps.
my car is oct 2004 with dpf and has the updt ones. 40 k up
still not sure weather to remove or not. i think if removed they could shorten the life of the dpf.
and i believe they are expensive. my car just passed the mot with emissions of 0.00.
regards Paul. if you have the car inquestion how many miles fapped or de-flapped.

Anzafin

You're right about the DPF and updated swirl flaps, they come together.

Member Hellraiser's updated swirl flaps failed, but he luckily managed to take them off before they completely failed.
This is a straight quote about what he said to me: "The end of the axel was broken in three of the swirl flaps, and one of the swirl flaps was bended in half!"

I had the updated swirl flaps too, but I removed them last winter at 95000km / 59000miles. Now it's 103000km / 64000miles in the clock and never had ANY problems. I also took my car through the MOT this summer and emissions were still 0.00 .

pauld30

thanks for the swift reply.
do you know the mileage on hellraiser's car ?
and what end of the shaft broke ?
i think its a lubrication issue. if somehow they could be lubed the shafts wouldn't break !!

Anzafin

I don't know about his mileage, sorry.
It was the back end (not the end where the twisting mechanics are) which was broken in his car. I don't think you can do anything to completely prevent the risk of them failing. Except removing the flaps.

Rislar

Mine were damaged on a 04 at 70k miles!! i removed them and its no different!!

khoratfarooq

Hi I removed mine at 76000 miles in my 525d 2005 (newer flaps). The all had solid axles with no defects.
No issues with the engine. MOT passed last month (81000 mile) with zero emmisions. PDF filter still has 40000 mile according to i-drive.
I would recommend flap removal and blanking plates method....(see pics below).








I have noticed better fuel economy too averaging 42.1 mpg (I was getting 38.5mpg with flaps in).

regards

Kaz

RJMorgan84

Hi

I also removed the swirl flaps and replaced with the blanking plates like above. Total cost was around ?100 and I did the job myself which took around 4 hours to start and fully complete.

It was a good thing I did as when removing the flaps I found one of the screws holding the flaps down was very loose and had this come out and dropped into the cylinder it would have took out probable the piston, turbo and maybe the engine!

So all in all worth the ?100 spend to avoid the issues the flaps have on occasion been known to cause.

I have not yet had an MOT since the change but have been assured that the emissions will still be very low and nothing to worry about.

Hope that helps and good luck!

Richard

Big_Scot

What exactly does the swirl flaps do???

Anzafin

They are supposed to reduce emissions when the engine runs below 2000rpms. And destroy the engine of course .
- Engine runs <2000rpms = swirl flaps closed
- Engine runs >2000rpms = swirl flaps opened

The emissions in MOT tests are measured on full throttle and they are watching only the fumigation values so the swirl flaps are indifferent in this aspect.

jasonprice07

As their name suggests they increase the "swirl" of the air within the combustion chamber promoting better air / fuel mixing.
This leads to a reduction in soot formation.
I was working on the calibration for swirl position a few weeks ago and the reduction of soot was really impressive so they are defenitely a good bit of kit for
emissions (as long as they stay out of the cyliner )

Jason