The throttle plate was sticking, and opened it up to find lots of black grime, which I cleaned out. Now it is working nicely, but it begs the question -- how did that stuff get there in the first place? Is it symptomatic of other problems that need to be fixed? There is a small black rubber hose going from the valve cover to the air intake, presumably to recirculate fumes from that space.
Is the problem related to the fact that the engine uses oil? TIA.
That is typical across all car engines. That is why they make throttle body cleaner. The fact that it burns oil could make it build up faster. I clean mine about once a year.
James
You do not say how many miles, but throttle bodies get bad on almost every type of modern fuel injected engine so I'd say this is normal and nothing indicating a problem. Regarding the oil consumption, though a rebuild is the permanent fix, there are some easy things you can do to improve this situation:
On #3 above, do a web search since the process is well documented in the Saturn Forum or Google Archives. This helps to dislodge carbon build up in the piston rings so reduces blow by and oil burning. Good luck.
Bob
It's frequently from exhaust gase recirculation.
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