off-book Legacy maintenance

[scorch]

I was noticing that in the Haynes manual, there is no recommended interval for cleaning the throttle body. This item should be done every 30,000 miles to keep the idle smooth and the fuel injection efficient. Is there anything other maintenance particular to these cars that should have been included as a periodic/preventative item that isn't in the book?

[nipper]

I was noticing that in the Haynes manual, there is no recommended interval for cleaning the throttle body. This item should be done every 30,000 miles to keep the idle smooth and the fuel injection efficient. Is there anything other maintenance particular to these cars that should have been included as a periodic/preventative item that isn't in the book?

 

Why "should" it be done every 30,000 miles, im curious. SOme throttle bodies dont need cleaning, others are a clean when needed thing. Considering subarus short interval on other things, if they thought it needed it, they would recomend it. Also too strong a solvent (carb cleaner is too strong) can ruin a throttle body. Some have protective coatings on them, and all have seals around the throttle body shaft to prevent vacume/air leaks.

Also subaru never says replace tranny fluid, only inspect it. We all know different, that it should be done about every 3 years (maybe thats why torque bind is an issue).

 

There are a few things that subaru is too conservative with. One is spark plugs, the other is brake fluid. They both have an insanely short maint interval then happens in real life.

[guy123]

I am also curious about this 30,000 mile interval for throttle body cleaning. I've never heard this anywhere other than the back of a can of throttle body cleaner. Throttle bodies can, from time to time, get a little gummed up and such, but a 30k interval seems a little excessive, to me anyway...

[scorch]

Why "should" it be done every 30,000 miles, im curious. SOme throttle bodies dont need cleaning, others are a clean when needed thing. Considering subarus short interval on other things, if they thought it needed it, they would recomend it. ...Also subaru never says replace tranny fluid, only inspect it. We all know different, that it should be done about every 3 years (maybe thats why torque bind is an issue).

 

You seem to be contradicting yourself. You recognize that subaru was wrong about ommitting a tranny fluid interval, yet don't believe that they could possibly be wrong about ommitting an interval for the throttle body. I've seen it in other manuals as a 60K maintenance item, but considering how easy it is and how often they get varnished with gunk, I think 30K is not unreasonable for the sake of preventive maintenance. If you saw how much gunk was on mine after 90K of mostly highway miles you might not begrudge a shorter maintenance period.

 

Also too strong a solvent (carb cleaner is too strong) can ruin a throttle body.Some have protective coatings on them, and all have seals around the throttle body shaft to prevent vacume/air leaks.

 

Well, nobody's saying to do the job wrong! And of course you'd want to use throttle body cleaner to clean the throttle body to avoid problems. Makes sense, doesn't it? Besides, Subaru's TB is not coated anyway. There are no seals around the TB shaft and besides, if you use a rag and a Q-tip to clean it it's not an issue anyway. It's about as easy to do this job as it is to do an oil change, for the price of a two dollar gasket, with more immediate and noticeable improvement in performance if it's even a little bit dirty.