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Clean Throttle Body-- sticker on it says not to

98ZetecMondeo

New CEG'er
Joined
Aug 5, 2013
Messages
9
was going to clean the throttle body the other day, (while I was cleaning the MAF to get rid of a bad idle when HOT) but then noticed a sticker on the throttle body that said ' do not clean, there is a special coating on the throttle plate and the inside of the body.

I opened the butterfly and swiped my finger in there and it was black, not as bad as some ive seen but still dirty

car has 253K on it
 
Yeah, but the coating doesn't work for squat (or maybe it did in your case). I ignore the note and carefully clean coating and coking off using acetone. Don't get any in the TPS. Can't say I've noticed any difference in length of time carbon takes to build up after removing the coating. Idle improves though, showing it was worth it.
 
Dedicated throttle body cleaner is supposed to be specifically for those coatings...ie to leave them intact. As opposed to the "old" carb cleaners.
 
Think it out brother................if the coating worked, you'd have no need of 'dedicated' throttle body cleaner.

More like a not too subtle hint to panic and take the car to your dealer. You gotta read between the lines............

I assure you the car does not care what you use, but it WILL know if the TB is suddenly clean.
 
I think they do work, they're just not a miracle cure. In other words, the carbon buildup would get worse without coatings.
 
My throttle body wasn't bad when I cleaned it but my uncoated EGR passage was clogged nearly solid. I had to break it up with a screwdriver.
 
EGR passages ALWAYS clog more than TBs...........you're running carbon dust through them. The more you scratch them up cleaning them the faster they will build back up too. The scratches give tooth for particles to lock onto.

The coating really doesn't help, the TB gets deposits about the same as earlier cars I've worked on with no coating at all. I take note that later cars do not have it any more either, Ford figured out it didn't work too.
 
EGR passages ALWAYS clog more than TBs...........you're running carbon dust through them. The more you scratch them up cleaning them the faster they will build back up too. The scratches give tooth for particles to lock onto.

The coating really doesn't help, the TB gets deposits about the same as earlier cars I've worked on with no coating at all. I take note that later cars do not have it any more either, Ford figured out it didn't work too.
It was probably a cost cutting measure more than anything. They might have looked at how much it helped and decided that they preferred to skip that step...ie it didn't make a significant difference in keeping the cars sufficiently open until the warranty expired. Remember the Pinto and the infamous memo stating that it wasn't worth the cost of reinforcing the fuel tank because claims payouts from potential deaths would be lower? These companies don't make cars so they'll last forever...they make them so they can profit as much as possible.

I'm not saying the coatings keep ALL deposits off the throttle body, only that they might be worse without them. You can only test this in a lab though as not all driving habits and vehicles therefore deposit buildups are created equal.

You wouldn't have thought my EGR passage would have been caked nearly solid with only 70,000 miles on it but it was. That's because the previous owner put the first 35,000 miles on the car with nearly all, if not purely, city driving and my own driving scenario wasn't much better up until that point.
 
REMEMBER the Pinto??? Hell, I have one.....................last year made, '80 wagon. THAT one by then had lots of extra stuff to stop the claims of wreck death. You should've seen the guard they put around the mechanical fuel pump up front, took 30 minutes to remove that thing. Made of 3/8" thick steel. Plastic protector plate at rear end cover and it was modded as well to remove the beer can opener sharp corners. Fuel tank has a plate welded to the front of it too. Ford was running scared by then. Almost as soon as the last one rolled off the line they let part inventories dry up to get them off the road, I had trouble finding parts within 3-4 years. At Ford it was an endless stream of NLAs when I went looking for dealer parts. Parts could choke you off Mustang II though, which used about half the Pinto parts. So, where I got many of them.
 
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