Intake swirl flaps

[irn_bru_ce]

So by now must be a decent ammount of cars without swirl flaps. My car is currently in for the MOT but the CEL is on due to flap issues. Can I just pick some peoples brains, I take it there is a vacuum powered actuator on each bank to drive the flaps, and a position sensor to report to the ECU the position of the flaps, are they equally prone to failure, and what is the approx cost of the actuators and the sensors, if they are seperate items?

When people delete the flaps, what parts are actually being removed, is the vacuum actuator and sensors being left in to move without any actual flaps being installed, or does the whole lot get removed?

When anything is removed, I assume the ECUs need changed in some way, can this be done with VCDS or is it a bigger job requiring a new map to be written?

[rocket1]

If the actuators are left in place and just the flaps removed it should be fine. If the whole lots been removed then its a remap time to code them out and stop error codes and lights.