Throttle Body Cleaning is Important

[William]

I have a 1999 Ford Contour SVT and 180,000 miles. For many years I have struggled to pass emissions since around 80,000.( I maintain my car well generally speaking. I have been repairing cars on my own since I was 15. Never rebuilt an engine or trans but just replaced a clutch.) The codes would be lean bank1, bank2 , maf sensor, low cat efficiency. The car ran fine but did have problems in the are of idle stability in the very cold weather that got worse overtime. In order to pass emissions I would reset the car with my OBDII drive until two of the modules were in the ready mode and test. A day of driving afterwards and the light goes back on. Yes, annoying.

Someone said I needed new cats.I had someone do a smoke test and fix some vacuum leaks and change a manifold gasket and lasted a short while.

I finally fixed it after all these years. The throttle body was all gummed up. I purchased the throttle body cleaner and after spraying and soaking repeatidly it was cleaned and passed emissions and after a week of driving no codes. The butterfly was filthy.

I figured this out since my 2003 suburban which never had emissions (140000 miles ) problems had maf sensor and lean codes. The fuel filter was dirty(opened it up) like black tint, the plugs were slightly fouled and changed but still had emissions issue. Plugs were changed at 100K. Someone on another forum suggested to clean the throttle body which I never thought of. After cleaning( filthy) passed emissions. By the way for my truck you open and close butterfly by turning car on but not start and manually open butterfly with pedal while someone cleans it. Do not open and close with finger. You may mess up the computer from what I hear.

What did I learn? The OBDII tester is only a guide. Just because the code states its a problem don’t just replace parts. Still have my originals cats, maf sensor and O2 sensors.

Topic

[Chuck]

+1 on that. I make it a regular task when checking fluids about once a month to spend the 15 seconds to see if its dirty or clean. It only takes 1 min to clean it down and helps a lot more than people think. I always move the fly with my fingers and haven’t had any issues yet. I can see you having an issue if you muscle it around but I’m gentle… Springs suck…

[wafrederick]

Ford has throttle bodies that have a tag on them saying do not clean the throttle body,replace it.Does the 2003 have throttle by wire or a throttle cable?The throttle by wire throttle bodies have problems for some makes and models and are not cheap when something goes bad inside of them

[Author]

Replies