I over service the car - thoughts on EFI service and Throttle Body cleaning?

 

For the EFI service, do they remove the injectors and test the spray patterns? Or is it one of those "In a bottle" services?

 

I highly doubt they pull each injector and clean it (if they ever put the bottle in the gas tank to clean it). I wouldn't recommend get that service done UNLESS you can DIY.

 

 

you should do it

 

Meh, I don't know that it's critical if you've been using high quality gasoline and don't notice any symptoms. Clogged fuel injectors will typically exhibit themselves with poor fuel economy and/or a gradual loss of power. I use top-tier fuel (usually Shell or Chevron) and run a bottle of Gumout fuel treatment every 2-3K miles (lots of PEA as well to keep the carbon deposits down). My fuel injectors have 155K on them and I have no intention of doing any sort of cleaning apart from spraying out the nozzles with some CRC electronic cleaner every 20-30K miles when I happen to remove the intake manifold for some reason. Still pulls harder than ever and gets 26MPG with 70/30 city/highway driving.

Throttle body cleaning isn't a half bad idea though. You can purchase some of the CRC throttle body cleaner, remove the air intake and spray down the butterfly valve yourself. Easy peasy for $5.

 

Agree with the using top tier gas, I had 200k miles on my old Lexus IS and the engine still running happy as if was new. I only fill up with Shell during 60k miles of my ownership.

As far as cleaning method, I highly against method mentioned above since the throttle body of modern car now is DBW and you can cause a short circuit on the throttle sensor. Best way to clean throttle body is to spray the cleaning solution onto a clean rag and use the rag to wipe down the valve and throttle body (repeated several time as needed).

Also if you clean the TB don't forget to perform "idle learning procedure" other wise your idle will be all over the place.