Oh yeah and it will not kill your car to leave it until next service, but your car will immediately run better and get better gas mileage! If you have strict smog regulations (like in canada or here in CA) and you have to go for a smog test get this done first or you could fail. Clean the throttle body while you are in there...

My car failed smog last year due to a plugged EGR (sorry Mark to mess up your stats about no EGR problems). I cleaned it myself and it passed smog right afterwards. It took me about 10 minites to get the throttle body off and then about 30 more to slowly bore out the grime and clean things.

Here is how I did it:

http://www.volvospeed.com/Repair/egr.php

I left the EGR on the car (often difficult to rmove those bolts) and simply cleaned out the hole in the bottom of the throttle body that leads to the EGR (that's where you get plugged). I used a small screw to lift out the grime and then a pipecleaner. I also cleaned the throttle body with carb cleaner while in there.

I have yet to meet a technician that does that or a shop that charges for it as part of a routine service. I remember all the buzz that created in the Volvo world when they came out with that. The concensus was the it was a bunch of politically motivated b.s. designed to cover their ass. The reality of the situation is run that darn valve until it does not work any more and then replace it. Care to guess how many EGR valves I have replaced due to plugging up in the past 20 years of working on these things? If you guessed zero then you are right. We have had our porblems with the EGR systems on Volvos but plugging up is not one of them.

Mark