Hello, I'm calling in for an oil change in a couple days time and the service person at my dealer recomended a throttle body service for my 2010 SS at 50,000km. They really tried to sell me on this, but I declined until I research a little info on here from you guys. They also said it is recomended but not mandatory, I'm assuming this won't hinder my warranty if I don't get it done.

Question is what does this service entail? Are they just going to clean out the TB by hand or use some sort of "GM" seafoam? They were asking $56 I believe.

There's been a bit of Seafoam talk lately and I've watched the video recently posted, seems very easy to do myself.

 

Cheaper to clean it yourself.

 

They will probably just use some sort of TB cleaner. Usually they will sell you fuel system service. What they will do though for that is just take off your intake tube and start the car and spray the TB clean at the TB from what I've seen.

 

Well lets see.

If you do in fact have an LNF then I'd run away from this dealer. They have no idea how much work it is to clean your TB. You would have it done, then they will take forever and try to charge it for you.

Don't buy into the gimmick

 

What exactly is entailed with Cleaning the TB on the LNF? I looked for some writeups, but couldn't seem to find any. From what i've read it is alot of work like you said.

 

Well generally they would just spray throttle body cleaner into the intake.

But on a turbo car you can't obviously do that.

They would have to remove the lower charge pipe and remove the throttle body and clean by had. There is no safe effective way to clean it on the car.

 

The labor for taking the throttle-body off is more than 56$ I wouldnt do it...

 

Exactly. It would probably be 2 hours labor if they have never done it before. Probably strip a bolt or screw a map sensor why dicking around with it. Funny thing is they probably wouldn't even touch it and still charge you.

 

You can always tell when a dealer has no idea you have the turbo Cobalt, or that a turbo Cobalt was ever even manufactured.

 

im sure seafoam would work. i looked at mine the other day at almost 60k kms and it look shinny and clean

 

They're probably trying to sell him an induction flush, which is like a seafoam treatment. No need to remove the TB. Some of you are being just as ignorant as you claim the dealership is.

Carbon deposits are a real problem on newer cars because of emissions, fuel additives and crankcase ventilation. Sure you can do it cheaper than the dealership, but you don't have to worry about paying for overhead, insurance, wages, etc...

You definitely should "safely" clean your TB every 20-30K to help resolve potential idle issues. On some vehicle, I've seen customers come in with check engine lights and pay diagnostics to find out they have throttle body performance codes set due to carbon deposits and resolved by an induction flush. There's nothing wrong with doing it yourself, just make sure you know what you're doing before you do it so you don't screw anything up.

 

I would not do a throttle body cleaning on an LNF

 

well done!! us techs are not crooks, i actually take the time an clean the TB for customers when i recomend this

 

Have you cleaned the TB on an LNF?

As for Seafoam. It's recommended, but by 100k miles I'm betting it won't be enough to prevent carbon build up issues.

 

Okay so from what I've got they would never do a TB clean due to cost/time, must just be a seafoam type of cleaner along with a gas tank additive, judging by the $56 cost. Are gas tank additives more/less effective on a DI engine?

This dealership is pretty good to me. I always have the head mechanic doing my work on the Cobalt (unless it's reg maint) He even did the Supercharger install for a 2.2 ecotec on my last car, 0 problems. Also there's a salesman there with an 08 SS/TC and he's went through the light mod stage (tune,intake,dp) so i'm hoping in the long run lessons learned from that car transfer over to mine

I haven't done a seafoam but come spring I think I will. Question is, how much does carbon buildup have an effect on performance? If 2 cars were dyno'd @ say 50,000km, 1 had been seafoamed a couple times, and the other never. Would there be a noticeable diffference on a dyno? Let's say this equation is doubled @ 100k, or even 150k, would the end results be visible on a dyno?

Thanks for the responses thus far.

 

Well i think you would see a little improvement with seafoam over time. The build up can cause issues like valve seating which will lead to lower compression and power. For sure needs to be done every 10k miles



In the gas tank won't really clean injectors and such though. High pressure pretty much prevents that.

 

if you drive like an old fart then you could have carbon build up gm doesnt recommend it gm has a bulletin saying not to do fuel system services but the dealers still sell them cash grab because its all about gas milage and if they say it will improve gas milage of course they'll do it

 

There have been a couple of members on here that lost boost pressure due to carbon buildup on the valve seats. I don't know if this would not have happened with the addition of Seafoam treatments, though.

 

Hey i have a 2008 ss/tc stock I have been keeping up with oil changes. Anyone have any ideas as to anything else I should do or have done im sitting at 56k. Just want to have it checked out make sure everything is still good before I start modding this summer.

 

My brake pads are needing to be changed very soon they said, Sitting @ 56,000km. Also I'm thinking about doing Coolant/Tranny fluid, but would like to wait till spring.