Snake Oil? Proprietary Throttle Body Cleaners and Tranny Flushes? (like BG)

The throttle body on my 2004 3.4L looks “varnished” per my mechanic. I have not looked at it but I trust his opinion. The previous owner likely never did anything to it as it is at 70k. This was not something I would ever hire out to a mechanic because it is too tedious. I am quite content to sit under tree on some warm spring day with a toothbrush and a couple cans of gumout or ether. When I told him this he said they spay something fancy in there and not only does it clean the throttle it clean out the injectors and often increase engine performance is a byproduct[paraphrased]. I trust him, he is a smart and honest man. And maybe chemicals have 100% replaced the need for elbow grease. But it sounds kinda snake oil like OR it sounds like similar products are available directly to the consumer like the AMSfoam stuff or one of the many products at auto zone.

I would love to hear people’s opinions on this. Including validity of the above statement, products I should try at home, and the need to physically scrub the throttle body?





EDIT: forgive me if I post a similar thread about tranny flushes next week.

 

I should add that i have cleaned many a butterfly valves with hair and dirt and crud... stuff that would never be soluble and should be removed physically. That is not the case here, just a little varnish.

 

I just soak mine in Seafoam for a day then scrub the plate with a brass brush to remove deposits. Bad idea?

 

Well now that's all I need to do. After I bought the truck it was obvious that it had never been touched. There was a good mm or two of rock hard carbon built up that took a while to clean. Doing that plus replacing both PCV valves improved things. These engines are still way too dirty, St least by my standards by how much oil is pulled through the intake.

 

This is what i always did, but i used a toothbrush rather than a brass brush. My wife's toothbrush. Shhhh.

 

That's why you use throttle body cleaner.

 

and what ones are worthy?

 

there's more than one PCV valve?!

I just get the CRC stuff.

 

This is one of those things where you will get 100 different opinions. I've used seafoam in the past and I "think" it helped. I'm sure there's better products.

 

Use throttle body cleaner on the throttle body, it won't hurt the coating on the butterfly valve. But the upper and lower intake plenum are just plain aluminum and you can soak them in diesel to clean em up.

 

So if a mechanic is charging $100 for some fancy service as described above, what is the likelihood that it is nothing more than something i can just buy at napa for $12?

 

Might as well clean the MAF sensor too if you're going to clean the TB.

 

It's very likely.

 

I dont recall if it was BG or not, and i am not dissing BG they likely have good products, but i assume it was something like this:
https://www.bgprod.com/catalog/gasoline-fuel-system/bg-throttle-body-intake-cleaner/#bg-product-20
and they are just going to do the same thing i did in high school with a can of gumout.
But he made it sound like some fancy injection system, not a spray bottle...

I think i will pass and do it the old fashioned way.

 

Ive done the same. Ever been offered an 'engine flush' at a shop?

 

spray the TB cleaner on a shop towel or rag and wipe it clean. if you are heavy fingered you can spray it down the intake (if you leave it on to clean).

 

A little dirt isn't going to hurt anything, removing it likely won't help anything. The only thing passing through the TB is air (well, only thing that's SUPPOSED to pass). As long as it's not so gooped up that it's not functioning correctly it's not an issue. I've cleaned several, mainly because I was already in there for another reason.

 

Wtf is an engine flush? Seafoam?

 

It's Seafoam I charge you $150 for.

 

Haha wow. Ridiculous. I've had some people call it "top end cleaner". And I'm like "ummm no"