Thottle Body is DOA, anyone else with this?

[GS Stage 1]

Today was pretty much like any other day, sun was out, so I was in the Sky a lot. Made a stop, and when I stated back up, pretty much every warning imaginable lit up on the DIC. And of course the limp home mode.

Limped it to my dealership, they called back within an hour with the diagnoses: Bad Throttle Body. They said the actuator had a mind of it's own and would just open and close without touching the gas. Hence the computer set the timing back, and shoved it into limp home.

I only have about 6000 miles on my 08. I did have the GM Stage II tune installed about three weeks ago. And I did have the conversation with my service techs about the possibility that there was a cause/effect. But their feeling is that the most it may have done was shove a marginal part over the edge.

Now here is the really interesting part. The OEM throttle body shows as being on back order. That makes me very suspicious that GM is having some problems with the throttle body.

My question for everyone is, how many of you have had the throttle body go bad? And at how many miles? And lastly, did you have any more problems after it was replaced?

Looking back on things; this explains some strange intermittent problems I have experienced in the past, but had written off as just flukes. Shortly after purchase I had the car go into a terrible surging situation when trying to start back up from a stoplight. I had to shut it off and restart, but that cleared the problem. That one was with only about 500 miles on it. And I have noticed a couple other times that it behaved a little strangely: momentary surge, momentary error codes on the DIC, etc. Nothing I could ever really put my finger on, and the car runs great otherwise. And since the issues were so far and few between, I just wrote them off as Sky idiosyncrasies.

Any insight on this will be greatly appreciated.

[Skip]

Iffen I remember we have had a couple of these go bad. Had to order them too. Pull an advanced search for throttle body and find out...Skip...

[snaponbob]

Backorder is not always REALLY backorder. I have requested a few different prtas from my Saturn store with a "it's on backorder" yet a couple days later they had it. Check with your service department to see if the Parts Department has requested a SPAC or cross shipping from another dealer (Saturn or Pontiac).

[GS Stage 1]

It is looking like the bad throttle body is a rare problem. I can only find a couple passing references in the forum to folks having them replaced.

I did call my dealership this morning, and they are going to recheck with parts to make sure they have checked the cross shipping system. But service said that is supposed to be done automatically whenever they put in a request. Given the number of HHR, Solstice, Cobalt, Sky cars on the road, I just can't believe there isn't an OEM Throttle Body sitting around.

I hope you are right snaponbob, and I will be surprised by Friday.

I had another thought this morning: Is the butterfly valve in the throttle body actuator driven open and then spring driven return? Or is it actuator driven both directions? Because if it spring driven closed, then just a broken spring may be my problem. Knowing Saturn though, I am sure they will just order the whole part.

UPDATE: No luck with the cross shipping system, still in a holding pattern. And the butterfly valve is actuator driven both ways, so no simple fix either.

[GS Stage 1]

I checked this morning and my throttle body is still on back order. I was told by my service department that they have been having a difficult time getting parts lately from GM. They have another part they have been waiting on for over a week and half now, for someone else.

I am getting a bad feeling about this...............

Does anyone have an OEM throttle body that you don't need anymore and would be willing to part with real cheap? Maybe I could convince Saturn to throw that one in until the warranty part shows up. I would order the big bore and be done with it, but funds are a little slim right now.

[ggccg]

Saturnmotorsports.com sells Big Bore Throttle Bodies for the Redline. They might also have a stock unit that was sent back as a swap on a Big Bore purchase.

[GS Stage 1]

Thanks for the tip, ggcg.

But unfortunately, I just got back from my dealership. They did get the part in today after all, switched it out and car still does not run.

At this point they don't know what the hell is going on. I am not happy now.

[duck833]

Same thing happened to me around 5-6K. They got the new part and had it back to me in a couple of days. Has been fine ever since.

[seal9]

I have a stock T/B in a box in my car parts bin...wow I have 2...pm me if you can't find one....seal9

[GS Stage 1]

Thanks for the help Guys, but they did get the part in yesterday after all.

It turned out that wasn’t the problem.


They finally figured it out this morning. I was told that what happened was a “one in a million shot”.

This might be good fore everyone else to be aware of as well: The last time I went to the car wash, I used the hand sprayer to clean out the wheel wells. (the car started misbehaving as I left the car wash) On the front of the Sky, there is a little space at the top of the wheel well, towards the back of the wheel where the clamshell hood touches the wheel well. Somehow, I managed to get enough water through the hole that it made it all the way back to the ECM pod mounted on the fire wall. And it got just enough moisture in the wiring harness to screw things up. It didn’t cause any damage, just enough interference in the sensor signals to through erroneous CEL codes and put the car in limp mode.

They figured it out this morning, dried out the connection, slapped a little dielectric compound on, and runs like new. How in the Hell I managed to get enough water that far back is beyond me, and it sure had the techs scratching their heads and laughing as well. But that definitely was the problem. So everyone be aware and don’t pull a GS bonehead.

On an up note, I did get a new throttle body out of the deal. And GM does have a new part number/throttle body. What ever they changed gave me about another lb of boost. Guess I won’t have to crank the WG adjustment as much.

[GS Stage 1]

Update: I went out to play today. Made a couple really good 1/4 runs, was able to catch the NLS from 2-3 and 3-4 both times. Everything seemed great. Drove another 3 miles back to a friends house and she went into limp mode again.

I called Onstar and had them run diagnostics. They were seeing low fuel pressure problem. I tried disconnecting battery to clear limp mode, but it just goes right back to limp again.

I think she has a bad high pressure fuel pump, and my dealership was chasing ghosts with the "water in ECM harness" fix.

Or maybe I have/had both problems. Starting to lose faith in the Sky real fast here.

[Skip]

Maybe some water still in the harness that is shorting out the High Pressure fuel pump. Now there have been some High Pressure fuel pumps go bad on this forum...Skip...

[GS Stage 1]

Ok, just got the call, my car is ready. They found "loose terminals at the high pressure fuel pump control solenoid".

I have never been a believer in coincidence, but maybe that is all this was. The tech said everything else checked out good. And that he could watch the scanner while he touched the control solenoid terminal and the voltage would change. He replaced the connector assembly and everything cleared.

It turned cold here again today, so I won't be able to go out and shove it hard, but I will do what I can to test.

If I am back in business again, then I am happy now and confidence coming back.

[skyradr]

Oh please don't say "solenoid." My sky has been in the shop for the past two weeks due to a faulty vent solenoid. They have to remove the gas tank to get to it. the first time, they told me that they replaced it, states it on the work order; when I brought it back in, the adviser told me that they had only repaired the connection and did not replace it the first time. Today they told me that they had to replace some other solenoid and had ordered the vent solenoid to replace that as well......I hope I don't start having fuel pump problems next.....

[GS Stage 1]

skyradr: Oh yeah, I heard about the fuel tank solenoid. It sounds like my dealership has seen a couple of those go bad on different vehicles. From the conversations I have had with my local guys, they have not seen a fuel pump go bad on a Sky yet. And from postings I have seen, it seems like most of the fuel pump problems were in the 07s.

I picked the car up today about 4:00 and drove the hell out of it. No codes, no limp mode and man does it run. I am now ticking 23 lbs of boost at WOT, settling out at the 21-22, with the WG at STOCK SETTING. I am getting the big boost mostly 2nd and up. In 1st it taps at about 19-20, but considering it was basically impossible to keep the tires from spinning, that made sense. For that matter, as cold as it was today, I was spinning in every gear if I went deep instead of easing into it. Need some warm weather and summer tires.

I will be a true believer after a couple months of hitting it hard. But at this point I think the bad high pressure fuel solenoid connector has been plaguing my car pretty much from the get go. This explains a lot of little anomalies that I have noticed every now and then. And it also explains why I seemed to have lower boost with the WG set in the stock position than others with the GM tune. The computer was getting erratic info from the fuel pressure, so it was always trying to compensate. And it finally got bad enough to start making the computer run home to momma.