$200 Throttle body service

Very few Prius owners have every done a "throttle body service". Especially at 65K. It's mostly a profit maker for the dealer.

 

A throttle body service takes about 10 to 15 minutes. You remove the air cleaner housing and your throttle body will be right in front of you. Get a can of throttle body cleaner at your neighborhood auto shop for $7, spray on a paper or cloth towel and wipe clean. Put back together.

If you go to youtube, there should be tons of videos on throttle body cleaning. You can see for yourself how easy it is.

 

I would say at 65k miles and you are not having any driving issues, I would defer this service until 100k miles.

 

I don't agree with the quoted price but I don't agree with your "guess" either.

How could you possibly know what "very few Prius owners have ever done" ??

Throttle bodies DO get dirty. They DO need to be cleaned.
But I think $200 is outrageous for what probably is a 15 minute job.

He probably already made the dealer happy by paying extra for a "flush" that wasn't really needed.

 

Who did you have do the work? I'd be nervous letting anyone other than a Toyota dealer touch the transmission in my car. I've seen and heard lots of third party shops use incorrect transmission fluid, and that can be an extremely costly mistake.

 

How do YOU know they need to be cleaned,or how dirty they are?

 

I've been looking down the throats of engine intakes for about 55 years now..........you ??

 

if you do the Throttle Body cleaning i would do it before the spark plug change. I would think it would be very simple. do a youtube search. I had done an engine flush before and a throttle body cleaning on my Ford F150. I used MAF spray to clean out the Mass Air Flow sensor and if my recollection serves me correctly you just spray around a bit on the intake and it cleans out the throttle body. I basically use "Top Tier Gasoline" with more additives than cheaper gas... quote from the site [ These automakers have raised the bar. TOP TIER Detergent Gasoline help drivers avoid lower quality gasoline which can leave deposits on critical engine parts, which reduces engine performance. ] I don't think i would clean out the throttle body until 100k miles or unless the engine was doing wanky stuff. The Top Tier gasoline is better in my opinion and helps to avoid expenditure such as Throttle body cleanings.

I would think $25-50 would be a fair price for 10 minutes of work. You don't need to rack the car, just lift the hood and take off a few bolts ( on the F150) not sure what the Prius needs.

 

The reason that the upper throttle body NEEDS cleaning is that the air filter is not perfect (some fine dust eventually makes it's way through) AND the fuel never touches that part to help keep it clean.

While you might go 200K miles or more and never have it cause any trouble, it is good to know what's building up in there, if anything.

 

I've accessed the throttle body on these cars -- it takes a good 15 minutes just to get to the throttle body plate. 1/2 hr would be fair for this job. I posted about this a while back. Anyway, my throttle body was still prestine at 60k, so I will recheck at the 120k mark...but ymmv.

 

Preventive maintenance of the throttle body is a good thing and will save you big issues down the road.

I am generally working on high mileage Prius that have throttle bodies that are often in desperate need of cleaning.

It takes longer than 10 minutes to fully clean a dirty throttle body.
Usually I need to remove/scrape off any caked up residue on the butterfly, the inside walls of the throttle body itself, and taking a thin "bottle brush" to clean out the gunk in the exhaust gas ports.
Also I replace the gasket along with cleaning the mating surfaces.
While I have the throttle body off I mop up any pooled oil in the bottom as well.
I also remove and clean the Mass Air Flow sensor.

 

See if you can get a more complete description from the service department, of what "throttle body service" entails. I walk by a Minute Lube where they run cars 'round the back, leave them running, hook up a bottle and fumigate the neighbourhood for 10 minutes. That's all, no disassembly.

 

A couple years less,so I guess you're the expert.One poster found his 'pristene' after 60k,and you said it yourself,one might go 200k w/o a problem[and i believe most cars do].
Sorry,I probably didn't make myself clear,You can't know if the OP's throttle body is dirty w/o looking at it,or
maybe if you've inspected many 2010 prius with 65k.

 

It is not so much the " clean or don't clean" argument, but good preventive maintenance. I would say that somewhere between 75k - 100k miles is a good place to look into doing it. Some people will keep their cars for under 100,000 miles so no reason to do the TB/MAFS cleaning, if you are getting rid of the ride. On the other hand, if you keep the car for under 200k miles no reason to do it a second time. So i would say at a minimum 100k and if you can do it yourself 65-75k. Or if you are a lazy shade tree mechanic and run TopTier gasoline 100k. Not sure what Toyota recommends.

Lastly, you are not just cleaning any carbon deposits on the intake and other buildups on the throttle body,but you are also cleaning the MAF sensor which dictates how much air/fuel ratio and i believe timing so it is a good idea to keep it clean. You need to be very careful since the MAF is expen$ive. Also, if you running sh*tty gas in the engine might be another reason to clean the TB/MAF.

 

The fuel never touches those components.....in normal operation.
The type of gas you use should have NO bearing on how clean those parts stay.

The problem, if there is one, is not carbon deposits but plain old dirt.

 

probably so, sh*tty gas will just foul the plugs and injectors and do wonders for your engine. It might also effect the timing on the engine. Cheap gas usually means few additives and a low octane rating.

 

Throttle body service sounds like a rip off. It is indeed a rip off.

I did my throttle body service for the first time on my 02 camry last year at about 175K miles. It wasn't that dirty to begin with. Let alone the 2010 Prius..