I had a tech at my work (BMW) replace my spark plugs today. We had talked about cleaning the throttle bodies but I forgot to tell him not to mess with them. He had cleaned one before I could tell him not to. It drove fine with a slightly raised idle for over 15 miles. I Just stopped at my buddies house and the SES light came on the dash when I pulled up. What did I do?

 

First things first, have the SES code read and see what it is?

Second, it might not be a good idea to clean ONE throttle body and ignore the other. You should have both cleaned. Cleaning just one could cause a difference in air pressure on both sides of the engine, although I suppose the MAF sensors should be taking care of that.

There would be no harm in cleaning throttle bodies, as long as the butterfly valve isn't moved. You can spray the throttle body cleaner and wipe the sides clean. The worst thing that will happen from cleaning them is that you have to set the idle learning procedure.

 

Thanks, I think the butterfly valve was moved. I wasn't there when he did it. I was working up front and went back to see how it was going and he said he had cleaned one side already. I might take it in to the dealer tomorrow. I have a valve cover leaking into the spark plug housing on the right side as well. Research tells me that will be expensive fix, probably won't do it. Hopefully I don't need a new TB or something because the butterfly was moved.

 

Your CEL should be an easy fix. As for your spark plug, unless it's a massive leak you'll be OK putting it off for awhile. The easy fix is to just buy a new valve cover and slap it on (2 hour job). The cheap way of doing it is I know there is a DIY on here where a guy bought a valve cover off I want to say an altima and used the tube from there to fix his spark plug leak. Looking forward to seeing how you end up!

 

Dont worry iv cleaned TB on these cars multiple times by moving the butterfly valve a dozen times nothing bad happens, in a few situations i just had to perform the quick 5 min relearn procedure that can take a few trues to master due to the timing accuracy required.

 

Well, the dealer tried the relearn procedure and the car would revert back to high idle when they took it for a test drive. They are trying to tell me that I need both new throttle bodies. The master tech (BMW) that did the spark plug replacement for me knows his ****, but how could he **** up the throttle bodies so bad? He wiped down the TB's but nothing special. Any ways, the work would be 1800 bucks because the TB's are over 800 a piece. Fck my life.

They say they installed a newer TB they had and hooked it up to both sides and that fixed the problem.

 

Well, I've heard of this issue before. It takes time after relearn procedure for it to come back down.

Drive the car for a little while and see if the issue resolves itself. If it doesn't, then you can find throttle bodies really cheap at junkyards to fix.

It is possible that he moved one butterfly valve on one throttle body and didn't touch the other, which confused the car. It may just take time for the car to revert itself.

 

I cleaned my throttle body once and will never do it again. It took me about 50 times to get the idle relearned. Wasn't worth the hassle in the long run to be honest.

The Infiniti/Nissan dealer is telling you it wouldn't take the idle? I had to do the following to get it to work.

Operating temp
All headlights/radio/AC/accessories off
Steering wheel perfectly centered
Then when it dropped down, turn the car off, and back on immediately.

The last step seemed to be the thing I was missing, since it would drop and then lose the setting every time.

 

I found them online for 245 a piece. OEM. My service advisor tells me that it is running rougher now then it was when I brought it in. Apparently the relearn affected it. I do have a good relationship with this dealership and they have always done me right in the past. The shop foreman is apparently the tech working on my car now. I had driven the car about 100 miles since the issue started. At least I have an AWD Q60 for the time being.

 

Well, the new throttle bodies fixed the problem. Runs Fantastic now!!! Still cost me $750 over all.