problems with Civic throttle body or throttle cable?
Discussion
My mum has a 54 plate 1.6 Civic (not current shape, the one before) which has a recurring problem apparently related to the throttle body getting gunked up - the throttle pedal appears to hit a sticky point after a small amount of travel making smooth progress very awkward.
The Honda dealer insists it's due to the throttle body becoming dirty, and after removing and cleaning it the problem is much reduced, but re-occurs about 6 months later (the car does only 6k miles per year).
I had a quick investigation and found some slack in the throttle cable which matched the "free" part of the pedal travel - when it feels sticky is actually when you start moving the butterfly against the spring. I tightened the cable which removed the problem by making the pedal travel uniform in resistance, so I think that the cable adjust is somehow slipping over time and that when Honda remove the throttle body to clean it they then reset the cable when re-installing it, alleviating the problem for a short time. As usual the garage insist they are right and that re-cleaning the TB is the only thing that can be done.
The car is 250 miles away from me so I can't easily just pop down to reset the cable, and my mum doesn't know enough to do it and really just wants it sorted once and for all.
Has anyone else encountered such a problem with a Civic throttle / cable system?
The Honda dealer insists it's due to the throttle body becoming dirty, and after removing and cleaning it the problem is much reduced, but re-occurs about 6 months later (the car does only 6k miles per year).
I had a quick investigation and found some slack in the throttle cable which matched the "free" part of the pedal travel - when it feels sticky is actually when you start moving the butterfly against the spring. I tightened the cable which removed the problem by making the pedal travel uniform in resistance, so I think that the cable adjust is somehow slipping over time and that when Honda remove the throttle body to clean it they then reset the cable when re-installing it, alleviating the problem for a short time. As usual the garage insist they are right and that re-cleaning the TB is the only thing that can be done.
The car is 250 miles away from me so I can't easily just pop down to reset the cable, and my mum doesn't know enough to do it and really just wants it sorted once and for all.
Has anyone else encountered such a problem with a Civic throttle / cable system?
Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 16th November 22:06
I believe it's common for throttle bodies to gunk up on Accord Type R's too. Also if your mum's car is the same the throttle cable is clipped to the cam cover and describes quite a tight radius. Over time the teflon coating wears a little and the cable gets sticky. I took mine in to my local Honda dealership as soon as I'd bought it last month for a service, cambelt, and asked them to sort the sticking throttle cable. They gave me the car back and told me I needed a new throttle body, £860, and there was nothing wrong with the cable. I bought a cable myself and fitted it in 15 mins, problem is now sorted. The bodies gunk up a bit because some of the exhaust gas is passed back through the induction to help with emissions, not much you can do apart from clean it every so often, or drive the car a bit harder !
Well that's what I thought - no matter how she drives I wouldn't expect to get only about 1000 miles out of it before the TB gunks up enough to cause problems...
If I was there I'd nylock or threadlock the cable adjust and see if that helped, but there's not much chance of guiding her through that over the phone, and trying to ask a dealer to do it is like talking to a brick wall.
If I was there I'd nylock or threadlock the cable adjust and see if that helped, but there's not much chance of guiding her through that over the phone, and trying to ask a dealer to do it is like talking to a brick wall.
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