probably kids sticking thing in holes or you live in the drought area of the country? I just use pressure washer or garden hose (course pressure washer would be better), then bottle brush, pressure washer, rinse with gas or alcohol. Course you just can't stop there. replace the fuel lines, filter if it got one, clean the carb. change the oil, and check the air filter. Remove the spark plug spay 5 second blast carb. cleaner down the hole. motor the engine (pull the rope several times) to blow out any carbon while priming the combustion chamber. Clean the plug, check the gap, hit it with carb. cleaner install it and fire it up after you put gas in the gas tank.

When a shop posts a help request similar to what is above, the normal reply is to tell them to substitute a known good technician. VBG... Test this and change that is not how to diagnose and repair a problem like this, well, by now you probably realize that because it simply doesn't work. Now sure there are times that this method does work, and occasionally you don't even spend a fortune doing it. But as a pro, you'd fail so often you would not last as a technician. A "noid" light is not an accurate test of the systems ability to turn the injectors on. The injectors initially start to draw current at such a level that if they were allowed to stay turned on long enough they would each draw twenty amps+ of current. To prevent overheating the injectors the computer uses what is called a peak and hold system. How it works is one transistor (also referred to as a "driver") turns on and starts to open the injector. Once a sufficient current flow is reached, a second transistor turns on that has a resistor in series with it, the first transistor turns off and that limits the current flow to around 1.8 amps. The "peak" part of the voltage waveform causes the injector to open, and the hold portion allows the injector to remain open long enough to dispense the right amount of fuel. A noid light will flash with as little as 1ma, or .001 amps. This type of testing has tricked just about everyone who relies on it at least once. The right way is to measure the current flow with a low amps probe an an oscilloscope. You can also use the scope to monitor the ground side of the injector to watch for both drivers signatures, and their inductive kick on turn off which is an indicator of the strength of the magnetic field that was created when the computer turned the injector on. Now just because current is flowing that does not mean that the injectors physically opened, nor does having fuel pressure guarantee there is fuel at the injectors under sufficient pressure to be injected into the engine. There are screens on the injectors themselves that serve as a last defense filters, as well as there is usually an inlet screen to the throttle body just inside of the fuel inlet nut. Once you prove that electrically the injectors should be opening, by measuring the current flow with them connected, and/or measuring their inductive kick. Plus you re-confirm that there is fuel pressure, AND volume. Then you have proven that problem is inside the throttle body, and you will need to take it apart to find out what is going on.

Generally speaking, no. There shouldn't be much difference in gas you use either. They are required to have pretty much the same additives. Now, having said that, I'll share an experience of mine. A few years ago our '98 Durango dropped a cylinder. It had a stuck injector. I dumped a bottle of techrolene in the tank at fill up and it ran fine. Next fill up, it dropped a cylinder again so I dumped in another. Cleared up again. Next fill up, dropped the cylinder again so I ordered an injector and dumped in another bottle of cleaner. Of coarse after I purchased the new injector, never installed it, it hasn't dropped a cylinder since. Got it in my tool box just in case, but it's been years now. So, if you want to in the name of preventative maintainence, you can dump one in when you change oil, or once a year or whatever you want. If something comes up like on your daughters car, you can do what I did and see if the problem goes away. Don't be surprised if it doesn't though. There's no such thing as a mechanic in a can. If an injector is just sticking little, the additive could very well take care of it. If there's something wrong with it, it won't do anything. I was just lucky. Would have been luckier if the problem cleared up for good before I purchased the injector. jmo

Every car needs attention, but rarely do two otherwise identical cars need the exact same services. Yet when at the dealer, quick lubes, and especially many of the chain stores you will see this "flush this and flush that" mentality. Business consultants have pushed for the last decade or so that as a business "You can't make money fixing cars", you need to sell services. Their programs allow for one or two top technicians inside the organization who actually can fix cars. Then a few techs who are on the road to becoming a journeymen technicians, and then essentially entry level people which are of course on the low end of the pay scale. If the shop gives an entry level person even average difficulty work, the chance of a mistake occurring where the car has to come back is quite high. So they have in effect created an entire list of services that can be sold and performed where little to no experience is required by the tech and therefore they have a very low chance of a mistake occurring. These flush services are more profitable per hour than the shop can charge for major repairs. Consider this the second part of Newtons law, " where for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". All of the price shopping for major repairs has stripped the profitability out of them, and at a dealer warranty work really tears the GP out of the equation. As a business they need a constant revenue stream to keep their doors open because true to the consultants description, they don't make money actually fixing broken cars so these services are sold and performed by an entry level group in order to subsidize the business when doing the more difficult, and especially warranty type repairs. Now do you need the differentials flushed, and the transmission serviced, injectors cleaned, etc? The fluid services are something I could only tell by looking at your owners manual, and by checking the conditions of the fluids myself. The problem here is even then the best that I can do is still subject to being a "subjective opinion". The injectors would only REQUIRE cleaning if your car was presenting a drive-ability symptom, otherwise, a bottle of cleaner once a year is just fine. A road test with the scan tool would show me if there was any chance of this being needed. The differentials are a simple drain and refill BTW, complete with easy to access drain and fill plugs (dipstick in some cases). Throttle body service? Easy to tell just by looking, as well as by watching the PCM control the idle speed with a scan tool. Many cars have a minimum idle speed, and the idle can be commanded with a scan tool to the lowest speed that the engine can reach. If the engine reaches the minimum idle speed without stalling, then the answer is "No", you don't require servicing. But consider this, the consultants have said its cheaper for the customer and the business to simply sell the service, than it is to employ and pay a technician who can and will perform the steps to test this and find out. You have seen price pressure from other posters here in this forum through the years that are the basis for the consultants advising the way they do. (Newtons Law again, that was the original action). Dollars and cents. The technician replacing a crankshaft in an engine is making the business around $100/hr gross profit while he costs the business $25-35 including benefits to be doing the repair. The flush routines can produce well over $250/hr gross profit for the business with close to minimum wage employees doing them. The crankshaft repair has a high risk of failure, the flushes extremely low risk. From that perspective, the consultants are correct. Anyone wonder why its difficult to find a real good technician/mechanic?