welcome back to steve rob reviews today i'm going to go through the process on how i actually fix
the problem on this car in 10 minutes and all i did was spend about maybe two cents worth of spray
and that is uh air intake system cleaner but you should really use another cleaner and we'll get
to that and of course i had to use a scan tool but you know there's a lot of people out there
don't have a scan tool this is like a 30 little cheap scan tool because i had to figure out what
was the code that came up on the dash and it was a p0171 and that is a lean code for a lot of people
they have no idea what lean codes mean and that's fine and i used a screwdriver and i have a uh
just a little socket here in the end of my ratchet
and that's about it and i fixed this in 10 minutes so whether you know anything about
vehicles or not if you're looking at this video you probably got one of these vehicles this is a
2015 chevy cruze with a 1.8 liter engine and this pretty much applies to a lot of vehicles out there
so we'll just take a look at this vehicle here in a second but first of all this was
the concerns of the person that owns this car this woman has been telling me for maybe
eight months to a year that every once in a while you know she get a little bit of a stop get
stopping at a light and the engine would just kind of just not run that great and it would run great
for months and then every once in a while just not run that great so she called me up and said well
can you take a look at it and i said well how's it running now well it's running great well what am
i going to look at right so i should let me know when the uh if you get a check engine light on the
dash which is the you know the amber light that comes on your dash there says to check your engine
so about a week ago well i get another phone call and it's uh well it's coming to a light the engine
starts shaking my brake pedal went down to the ground like i could barely hardly hold the car
back you know just you know in parks stopped at a light you know like the brake pedal went down and
the engine stalled so i said okay you got a light on the dash yep okay so first concern was should
i drive the vehicle i said well is the light flashing and she goes no i said okay sure says
well when you got time bring it around you know in the next couple of days or a week or whatever
and the vehicle did stall again within that week she brought it over to me i took a look at it
and that's when i scanned it and it was a p0171 lean code i'm going to go over how i
you know fix this vehicle and uh you know this is more or less geared to people who
you know have a similar problem like this but they really don't know where to turn to because
most youtube videos are thrown out all kinds of technical terms and people just don't know
what to do and how to save some money and fix the car themselves right so i'm going to go over some
easy things and these are the things that i've learned myself from youtube and uh i'm going to
go over these things and i'm just going to show you how this may pertain to you but actually
i fixed the the check engine light but i didn't fix the uh you know the rough
uh you know just a little bit of a stumble and rough every once in a while i light you know being
stopped and uh i'm going to take a look at that too but i'm pretty sure i know what that is so
let's go over the engine and i'm going to show you some common things that you could check yourself
and you know you don't need a scan tool you don't need nothing right and these things are simple for
everyone to do and if it fixes your vehicle fantastic but you know what there's a lot to
vehicles and fixing them there's a you know like i always say it's 90 of the knowledge up here that
fixes a vehicle and 10 is the tools you're using so let's go over to the car and uh i'll show you
some stuff that you can do yourself and uh very simple things that you can do yourself and if it
fixes your your resolve well then fine because a lot of times this will fix your your problems
so here we are here we're on the uh the engine bay here and this is just the cover that goes
on here it's very easy to slide this back and right here now this is where the pcv valve is
on some vehicles and models it'll be over here but anyways if many times on an intermittent
problem well you could have a leaky pcv valve so you start the vehicle up and you just put
your finger over top of here actually if it's leaking you will hear a hissing coming through
here anyways that's one spot there that's what i checked first and then i came over to here and if
you take a look at this gizmo right here well this is your uh evap purge valve so you just disconnect
the electrical connector you see that red tab just put a little screwdriver or whatever underneath
pull this tab up pull this back now do it when the engine's not on of course
and then start the engine up and on this side here this here is an electrical solenoid in here
so when it's commanded on it will open up between this side and this side this is the engine vacuum
side this side here goes to your charcoal canister to reburn exhaust fumes in the engine so when
you disconnect this it disables this valve inside here this solenoid so you pull this line off here
and you start the engine up and you put your finger on the end and if it's sucking any air
well that means that this valve is no good and you know that will be an intermittent thing
as well it's not so easy to find now we're going to get over to how i fix the vehicle
so both of them things were fine i went over to here and i'm going to show you exactly what i did
all i did was took the screw out there's one on the bottom one on the top took this out like this
i flipped it over you see that right there yeah it's like a little pellet there on the
bottom i just sprayed that for about three seconds turned it over stuck it back in
put the two screws in one on the top one in the bottom left it there for about 20 minutes to dry
off started the car up check engine light went out and uh that resolved the problem right there
so a week later goes by and this woman says to me you know the car runs great the check engine
light didn't come back on everything is fine but i still do get a little bit of stumbling
that goes on when i'm at a light and the vehicle just kinda it just doesn't idle right
but you know it's not like before it doesn't stall and the brake pedal doesn't go to the floor or you
know that kind of thing do you know any idea what that could be and i'm going well you know what
i think you had two problems one was the dirty mass air flow sensor and you clean that with mass
air flow sensor fluid now i didn't but you know you really should because if you're you know i
don't want anybody complaining that you use the wrong fluid and they're driving a mclaren or a
uh bentley or a ferrari and uh you know they just wrecked a two thousand dollar mass airflow sensor
so use the fluid mass airflow sensor cleaner only takes two seconds to just spray it down
a little bit and that's it okay so now i'm moving on to the second fault i'm going to take this off
right here and i'm going to show you we're going down to the throttle body and we'll do that next
so here i just took the snorkel off very easy you just undo these two bands one here
one here and now we go for the prize and here's the throttle body right here now you see
all that dark residue all the way around the outside there
well over time when it gets too much residue on there what will happen is you don't get the
minimum amount of air going through at an idle now that is in the complete closed position and
if it gets too gummed up all the way around well what happens is
you don't get the right amount of air going through there so you can just clean that
all the way around there so i'm going to show you what i use to clean it with
and i'll i will clean it and i'll bring it back and i'll show you what it looks like after but
let's take a look and see what i'm going to use to clean that with okay so i'm just using the uh
the air intake cleaner now they do have throttle body cleaner like i say uh you can use a throttle
body cleaner if you've got a mclaren bugatti or a ferrari and this is just like a plastic stick and
i put a shop towel on the end there and i am going to spray that and then wipe all the way around i'm
not taking the throttle body off i'm just going to wipe all the way around on the inside there now
the thing you have to remember is that throttle body is electrically operated so i have a tool
that holds the the gas pedal down while it opens it up and you know i'm using this tool
i'm not sticking my fingers in there because if that plate were to come down you know on
you well it's dangerous right so you can jam something up against the gas pedal while uh
it'll open up now i'm going to turn the ignition on first not going to start the car and
i'll clean that all out and then i'll bring you back so let's do that next so i got the gas pedal
fully depressed and you can see without the engine actually being on uh it will not open
all the way when the engine is off but that's enough for me to get in there and clean just
on the bottom there you can see and on the top side but really to do it really well you take the
throttle body off and you clean it really good off the vehicle but this here is just to verify
whether this problem of every once in a while a little bit of a rough idle at a stop
in park or in neutral or in drive because i did ask her i said what happens if you
put it into neutral so she tried put it in neutral and of course it would run a lot better in neutral
than it would in drive so or in park park was fine neutral is fine in gear yeah i'm suspecting
that that's dirty there and on the other side so i'll clean it and then i'll bring you back
well there's five minutes and there's the results right there
i mean this one here was used mostly on the bottom part you don't want to put anything
in there that's going to scratch anything or anything so and this one here i did on the top
and that's what i got off the top so let's go over to the vehicle now and
and take a look now that's it right there and that's a lot better than before
and uh we're gonna give it back and she's going to let me know if the idol is a lot better now
and that's all we can do and that was very simple to do if you're wondering well what were you using
to hold the gas pedal down you know you can just use a snow brush and then move your seat
to go forward just to keep the gas pedal depressed but i made this many years ago and it's out of a
cheap caulking gun and i just threw it together so i could use it for holding down a brake pedal
or holding down the accelerator pedal okay so when you're thinking about fixing your vehicle
the vast majority of youtube videos out there are going to be referring to a lot of different
terms that maybe you don't understand but just for the beginner yeah all you really
need all i used was this little thirty dollar scan tool to figure everything out myself
and you know you don't need a smoke machine you know and all that kind of stuff what i like to do
is pick the low hanging fruit go for the easy stuff first
and if it works it works and you can see all the different procedures i went through here
and you know the p0171 the lean condition well it's been resolved and what i'll do is
i'll put a little bit of a note in the description box down below and uh because this video will be
uploaded like more than a week ahead of time so yeah if this doesn't resolve the
the uh a little bit of a stumble a little bit of a rock that's about all it was right for the uh
throttle body the cleaning of the throttle body well then i'll let you know down below but if you
don't see anything well then you know you'll find out but really when it comes to fixing automobiles
it's all knowledge based and i'm going to put a link down below to a good friend of mine who is
one of many that are just top-notch technicians and uh this particular fella is an instructor
at one of the most uh you know renowned colleges in america and he teaches automotive diagnostics
and i'm going to put a link down below to my friend paul i mean i could put lots of
links there's so many people on youtube that are really really really good but i got to
pick somebody right and i believe paul's got just about the best library for for like the beginner
from the beginner right up to like the master technicians that's what this guy specializes in
and i'll put a link down to paul's youtube channel and if you're interested in learning about
everything how to fix the car yourself with diagnostics well paul is a good guy you know
to to actually learn from he's been on youtube a long long long time greatest guy you ever going
to want to meet and uh he'll go through all the different processes to teach you how to do all the
things that i've learned myself from his channel and so many others as well and you know the whole
idea about fixing the vehicle yourself is not always like what i showed here today was just
a rough oversight of of possible causes there is no real silver bullets but you know for if you're
just starting off get yourself one of these you know get yourself a familiar with one of these
little low-cost scan tools and you know they all give you live data freeze frame data you know and
if you go to paul's videos he'll explain to you exactly what all the different terms are you know
in automotive world on on explaining exactly what a certain code means and what sometimes
it doesn't mean because if you watch paul's videos and he'll mention the word variables
a lot and that's what it comes down to is a lot of variables and to fix vehicles can be very very
difficult but with the right training and the right understanding of the different
circuit designs well you can do the exact same thing that he does as a professional technician
so you know i encourage everyone to uh check out the link in the description box
and uh go over and take a look at his channel now the majority of the people that are watching
this video a lot of people know you know paul danner but uh there's a lot of people that don't
and for the new people for the do-it-yourselfers the people who who find that this kind of thing
might be helpful to them well i guarantee you looking at paul's channel will be very helpful for
you you as well and it's all free right so thanks for joining me here today if you haven't seen this
channel before you're welcome to subscribe and uh you know i i didn't go into a lot of theory and a
lot of technical things i just wanted to present a video where somebody who has a similar problem
and even if it's not you know the exact same similar vehicle that they could get some tips
on how to look for some stuff for themselves and you know just cleaning the mass air flow sensor
man that that the whole thing like the whole process took me 10 minutes and you know she she
was happy right so you know if you're thinking about you know tackling some of these projects
yourself well you need a good resource base and i think paul is about you know he's right up on par
with all the other great technicians on youtube and take a look at his channel and i guarantee
you that you'll be quite impressed on how you can learn to fix your vehicle yourself too take care