The Dealer wanted to upcharge me $200 for a throttle body service when I have no known problems and just 36,000 miles. All I know when I had them do a Cooling system service & Transmission flush, they cleaned my engine or most of it, looked great, probably didn't do any work. Sleazy Vegas Dealer

 

I might need a tranny flush. The lady who owned it before me did the bare minimum maintenance (oil changes lol).

 

Auto Zone or other places have "Throttle Body Cleaner" that is recommended. Most sources strongly suggest not using brake cleaner, but can as long as you are careful to remove all residue afterwards. If you don't, you'll get a nice burning smell and some white smoke until the residual brake cleaner is removed. See Doc Olds response below to understand why brake cleaner (or carb cleaner) is wrong.

There is only a single hose clamp, a single plug, and four bolts that hold the throttle body onto the intake manifold. Buy some throttle body cleaner and a replacement gasket ahead of time. You can reuse your old gasket, but for less than $10 I would just replace it. Remove the throttle body wiring plug, remove the charge pipe clamp and pull off the charge pipe. Remove the four bolts holding the throttle body to the intake manifold and remove the throttle body. Clean it up, replace the gasket, then reinstall everything in reverse order. Throttle body bolt torque is 80 lb-in. Don't go over this since you're torqueing to a plastic housing!

Start up the car, get a bottle with some water and dish soap in it, and spray the throttle body gasket area and the charge pipe to make sure you don't have any boost leaks in those two areas. Congrats! You cleaned your throttle body.

Total time to do all of this is maybe an hour if it's your first time, but probably less. Definitely not worth paying someone $200 in my mind, but that really depends on how you value your time.

Now to the more important question... is this something worth doing at all? If your engine is running rich, you might have some carbon buildup on your throttle body. Would it be enough to cause rough idle? Probably not. I'd only suggest going through the above exercise if you're interested in getting your hands a little dirty doing a simple enough project that can't really hurt anything (there isn't much you can mess up).

 

When you clean a TB you use TB Cleaner ONLY! Using Brake clean, carb/choke cleaner, or whatever you have laying around is not just a bad idea. It is not about wiping off the easy at hand cleaner, it is about protecting the TB's internal plastic gear(s) and electronic connectors. TB cleaner is made so it will not harm those. The other stuff can literally ruin your TB even though you cleaned it. Certain types of cleaners can damage the electric components, seals and O-rings and wash off the grease from the shaft bearings. CRC ia about $7 a can, it will clean several TBs. You decide if being cheap is a good idea when doing simple maintenance.

TBs can and do cause rough idle. Basic service for all fuel injected vehicles every 30-50K miles. Simplistic explanation. They are an air valve, and suck in crud that can bind the Throttle Plate, impair the idle pass circuit and build up to the point of not allowing the Throttle Plate to fully close and get sticky. When things get sticky in a drive by wire TB, the position sensor (which adjusts in milliseconds) is often over correcting looking for feedback from the PCM to get the idle where it calls for. Back and forth adjustments/over adjustment cause a rough idle.

 

Fair response, and thank you for doing it in a way that was respectful but still said "don't be stupid"