Just used Wynn's Fuel injection, Carb and air intake cleaner (or whatever it's more precisely called) costing £4.99 in Halfords, it claims to be safe on oxygen sensors. Did it with the engine running at idle as recommended in short burst. The engine definitely doesn't like burning this stuff and cut out 3 times taking a bit more starter motor effort to start up again. Smoke could be seen arising from the throttle body when pushing the accellerator pedal down with engine off. Did not use a toothbrush or any implement. It does obviously remove the gunk very easily as you can see this in the more visible areas. The throttle has definitely improved and it's most noticeable when moving away. The engine also appears to be quieter.

Instructions mention something about removing the throttle plenum, I assume they mean removing the throttle body to give the intake manifold a good clean out, which I didn't bother with.

Noticed "mayo" under oil cap , not sure if it's related to the throttle cleaning or not.

If you haven't already and your car has maybe 50k+ miles on the clock I'd say using this cleaner is definitely worth a shot for the small improvements!

I can agree with this. I replaced my air filter and cleaned the throttle body with carb cleaner when I got my Skoda, and it seemed to make the car much smoother.

All cars I have used it on seem to die like yours did, I think its because you upset the air/fuel ratio. They always smoke afterwards as all the gunk/solvent is burned off too.

As for the mayo, I am pretty certain that this is not related to the carb cleaner, but may be related to your car not getting upto temperature (as you said in another thread), and is probably condensation in the oil. This is quite common at this time of year, especially when making lots of short journeys, whern the engine does not get upto temp.

Hope this helps.

Drew

Thanks for the pointer, was starting to have visions of disconnecting all the pipes and using a wheel brace to get the cylinder head bolts off. Not very fun, lol.

You are welcome. If you do suspect the head gasket, check for oil in the water, and get a compression test done. Both are much less work than changing the head gasket unneccesarily, and are fairly easy to do too.

i would always say its worth actually taking the TB off for cleaning. all that gunk sloping through the induction manifold and through the injectors cant be good for the engine

i would always say its worth actually taking the TB off for cleaning. all that gunk sloping through the induction manifold and through the injectors cant be good for the engine

In the SPI the injector seems to spray petrol onto the throttle butterfly, at least that's what it looked like when I cleaned it. Although yes, the gunk has to be going somewhere.