Symptoms of a Bad Throttle on a Car

Video Transcript

"Good afternoon my name is Tom Brintzenhofe, Certified Master Mechanic out of Reading, Pennsylvania and today I'm going to talk a little bit about what are some of the symptoms of a bad throttle? I'm going to elaborate a little bit on that one and stretch a little bit and say what are some of the symptoms of a bad throttle body that's basically the term they would use over the last couple of years and it basically refers to what used to be an old carburetor, it's just your air intake, the body that controls your throttle blade. Some of the biggest symptoms you'll have of a bad throttle body are a sticking gas pedal, you'll feel a little bit of hesitation a little bit of like a stop when you push on the gas pedal. Some of the other symptoms you might see is a rough idle, a low idle, hesitation, typically throttle bodes don't go bad. Maybe if you have over 100,000 miles it might be worn to the point that it is just, it needs to be replaced. Ninety per cent of the throttle bodies today unfortunately you can't repair. They're serviced as a unit which basically means they take them off and just put a whole new unit in it and they are quite expensive but typically the only thing that really goes bad with a throttle body in todays age is basic dirt build up. They usually have an intake air valve on them. They have different vacuum ports on them and right around the file blades they end up picking up dirt. The best thing is get in there with a soft tooth brush and a little throttle body cleaner and just scrub them out pretty good and that pretty much takes care of 90 % of throttle bodies but hopefully that cleared it up for you and what are some of the problems with a throttle and some of the symptoms with a throttle body."