Had a good experience with........

[Vic's Viewpoint]

Miller Toyota in Culver City, CA. It was time for the truck's 80,000-mile service, so I went out to WalMart and bought 6 quarts of Mobil 1 "Extended Duration" (?) synthetic oil, then drove to the dealer-
ship and asked for service at about 11 AM. The service cat looked at me for a moment, then threw a punch! Canny, perceptive dude that I am, I interpreted that as a "no," and left.

No, but seriously, they took me right away, did the lube/oil/filter/tire rotation/multi-point inspection service, re-set all five tires to 35 PSI, took special care looking for leaks around axle seals and wheel
bearing seals, topped off all fluid levels and even measured and reported the depth of the tread on all
five tires and the amount of lining left on the calipers. Total labor charge for all of that was $51, which
seems reasonable to me. Then they tried to sell me a "throttle body cleaning" (tech said it 'looked black in there') and a fuel injection system flush. I was going to say no, but then the service writer took $80 off of those two combined services, so I caved and let them do it. I'm fully aware that both those services are over-sold by dealerships and over-rated, but I couldn't help myself. I'm so in love with that V-6 4Runner that whenever a service writer offers an additional service, I degenerate into Pavlov's dog and start to salivate. So the dealership made a little (?) money and I saved a little money, albeit on two
services of dubious utility, and I left the dealership feeling I had done my best to extend the service life of my truck.

I was out the door in just under three hours, and feeling very pleased that I only got overcharged about $100 (I hope) at a total bill of $300. Am now good for another 5,000 miles. By the way, the tech said that he found no leaks and no low fluid levels anywhere, which ain't bad for a six year old truck with 80,000 miles on it. This is just reinforcement for my belief that these are remarkably well made and well designed trucks. I be impressed.

[Teach]

I hope they used a little K-Y jelly, and maybe gave you a kiss or two. It "looks black in there" because of the Teflon coating on the throttle plate to help keep it from sticking to the bore of the throttle body casting. I hope they also replaced the Oxygen sensor, since any solvent strong enough to do a proper cleaning of the injectors also trashes the O2 sensor in the process of going out the tailpipe. Welcome to the ranks of the gullible!
Jerry

[Vic's Viewpoint]

Oh I've not the slightest doubt about my gullibility, but my question is: did I reap any benefit at all from either of those two "services?" And no, they didn't change the O2 sensor. In particular, does the throttle body EVER need cleaning? I can sort of understand the injectors needing flushing out every X-many miles, but the throttle body service has always seemed like a con job to me. All advice and opinions gratefully received.

[Teach]

If the injector cleaning involves a hookup directly to the fuel rail and none of the solvent makes its way to the fuel tank, they're probably using the good stuff. The reason for keeping the cleaner out of the fuel return line is so it won't dissolve the plastic strainer in the tank. Unless the throttle body is heavily coated in carbon deposits, "cleaning" it is always a P.T. Barnum Special ("There's a sucker born every minute!") If the strong injector cleaner is used, any reputable service department will reccomend (or insist on) changing the O2 sensor due to deposits the burning solvent will leave on the reactive surfaces of the old one.
Jerry

[ghostsniper1]

The few vehicles I have seen benefit from a throttle body cleaning are the early to late 90's ford trucks and suv's with the 4.0 and 5.0 engines. Those were needed mainly for having a "sticky" accelerator pedal. Funny part is that there was a label right on the TB that stated not to clean them since they had a coating of some sort.