I recently bought a 2003 cavalier as a gas saver car. it has 104000 miles on it but it still looks good and runs good till about two weeks ago. my rpms started to bounce from between 600 to 900. i decided to clean the throttle body with gumout carb cleaner and removed a bunch of carbon build up from it. i thought it would help but instead it made it worse now my car started to idle at 1500 rpm and would jerk when i would be driving on the freeway and would start to slow down or when i turn the a/c on. i started fixing it by replacing the IAC and IAT sensors and gauging for a vacuum leak but none was found. i had code P0507. i took my car to a mechanic and told me that the jerking could be due to bad gas so we changed out the fuel filter and had a lot of black gunk shoot out. the filter was so dirty that you couldn't even blow through it. doing that it made the rpms come down to 1000 at idle. need help don't know if i need to change the fuel filter out again or if it may be something else. what can i put in the gas tank to clean it out? what can make the car idle high? what should the idle be? by the way it an automatic trans can it be anything with the trans? please help
This should be in the maintenance forum.
Sounds like something happened when you reassembled the throttlebody. make sure nothing is dragging on throttle and cruise cables (if you have cruise)
Also both the ecotec and the 2.4 are known to rev high on a cold start and slowly fall down to 600 - 900 RPMS at idle... so keep that in mind.
If your battery is running low, the alternator will rev up the engine while its charging the battery...
Try this. While the car is idling high, unplug the TPS. if the idle drops back down, reconnect the sensor, shut the car off and disconnect the battery. Let the car sit for a while. I just happened to let mine sit overnight. Reconnect the battery and start it up. It may idle high again at first but it should settle down. Take it for a drive for 10-15 mins and the idle should be better. This is assuming you've already to make sure that the parts you replaced are installed and working and you have no vacuum leaks.
ok. so could it be my TPS? i will do what you reccommend minitransam and hopefully that helps. i know i dont have a vacuum leak as i cheked for that and had that tested. i dont have an SES code anymore just the high idle.im thinking that it could be the IAT wires that might be loose since i replaced the small wires on it. if thats not it could it be the fuel filter? please help
