One of the very common problems that we see on automobiles are cars that like to stall when they get hot.  And one of the more common causes of that is right here. This is a typical throttle body. It controls the amount of air going into the engine therefore controls how the engine idles. Well a lot of them get dirty.  As a matter of fact, this one that we have right here. If we shine a light in the back of it and we can’t see anything to speak of on the other side of it. Yet we take one over here that’s clean, we do the same thing with it. And we can see that there is light just about all the way around the throttle plate. Alright so that’s where our problem is. And we need to clean that away and in order to clean it that means that you have to open the throttle plate, older cars no problem you can just move it open like this.  And you can spray the appropriate type of cleaner in there. 

Alright, what’s appropriate? Well this is throttle body cleaner. It is designed specifically for the characteristics of throttle bodies. None of these products over here brake clean, carburetor cleaner, and all of that. They may or they may not clean the throttle body properly. And they may or may not damage the throttle body. So why not just do what’s right use throttle body cleaner. Alright now, here is where you run into a problem on later model cars. See late model cars have no mechanical linkage to the inside of the car, they’re fly by wire, they’re electronic, and one thing that you can’t do is you can’t reach in here and push this open. Well you could, but you may wind up having to reprogram the computer if you do it. So on a late model car, how do you go about getting the throttle plate open so you can get the cleaner in there to clean it? Well you use an assistant. And what the assistant does is turn on the key and slowly depresses the accelerator and as the accelerator in the car is depressed the throttle plate will open. Now naturally the car is not running during this because you don’t to blow up the engine, but that’s how you get the throttle plate open to clean it on a late model car. And if you have a question or comment, drop me a line, right here at MotorWeek.