Throttle body cleaning

[TonyLS]

Had the 04V6 LS in for an oil change, 38k miles. The dealer suggested that I have the throttle body cleaned, they quoted a price of $130.00. I told them next time it's in I'll have it done.

This should be a fairly easy job to do my self, don't you agree? Has anyone done this and do you have a procedure that I can follow?

The car is running great so I didn't see a need to do this job immediately.

Thanks

 

[beaups]

that's weird. service manual specifically states not to do it on 03+ due to fear of damaging coatings or whatever...

 

[Kelleyo]

Had the 04V6 LS in for an oil change, 38k miles. The dealer suggested that I have the throttle body cleaned, they quoted a price of $130.00. I told them next time it's in I'll have it done.

This should be a fairly easy job to do my self, don't you agree? Has anyone done this and do you have a procedure that I can follow?

The car is running great so I didn't see a need to do this job immediately.

Thanks

That is a huge ripoff buy the "stealership".

 

[NickLS]

When I took my wife's caravan down to the dodge dealership, the service guy tried to persuade me that it MUST be down.. Saying this will happen, or that should happen.. I just threw up the :bsflag: and said "next time".

Then he wanted to charge me something like $60-70 to rotate the tires.. I asked him if they were direction tires (to know if the tires needed to be swapped on rims) and he said no.

So I asked him, that if they will work going in either direction, that it's just like changing a tire and that rotating them I could do by myself. He started to balk at the idea.. but I just turned around and left.

 

[2001LS8Sport]

Many of Ford's throttle bodies are indeed coated and Ford says not to clean them...which surprises me the dealer would try and sell that. But the truth is, even though they are coated, they can get dirty. Especially the IAT motor and passages. I take brake cleaner and carefully clean everything. I have never had the coating come off.

 

[Quik LS]

I don't see it listed as part of the 'scheduled maintenance'.

highly unlikely they pulled the intake tube to visually look at the throttle and check if it was actually dirty......

Pulling the TB off and giving it a good cleaning is not a hard job - but usually requires dealing with the cooling system lines that run through the TB (TB warmer). The pre-03s have this - not sure about 03+)

I'm not a big fan of spray cleaning the TB while still on the intake....

 

[Jim Henderson]

This is a huge profit service and ALL dealers I have heard of love to recommend this service. Usually they just use a pressureized solvent flush thru the fuel system and spray the TB. Sometimes they remove the TB and clean it by hand. You can do this yourslef, but usually it isn't needed until you have maybe 80K miles or more.

Some sprays will dissolve the plastic coating on the TB. This will not destroy the TB but it will make the TB get dirty faster so then the dealer can do the cleaning even more often. Maybe that's why the manual says no but the dealer says yes.

If you want to do this yourself, there are sprays that say they are SAFE for plastic coated TBs. Use that, a tooth brush and maybe some pipe cleaners and you are good to go. But like I said, unless you car runs especially dirty, you should not need this for a lot of miles.

Good Luck,

Jim Henderson

 

[TonyLS]

I thought the price was rediculess myself. I had a ford taurus that ran like crap one day, it was due to a dirty throttle body. So it can be a real problem. And I also doubt that they actually looked at it, the car is running A-1 right now.

So someone said that ford specifically says not to clean it? Is that in the owners manualy or just in the service manual? Is it in the online service manual that someone provided a link to in here? If so what section?

 

[joegr]

I've seen do not clean stamped on the throttle body before. (This was on a 4.6L, haven't looked for it on the LS yet.)