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It takes about 5 mins to clean your Throttle Body.

buy some 'carb cleaner' from halfords.

Take off your airbox/filter exposing the throttle body, give it a wipe down, the get someone to start the engine and pulse the accelerator up to 5-6k revs and down again, over and over. You'll notice the butterfly opens. Spray approx half the can of carb cleaner constantly into the TB.

When finished leave the car running, and take it for a good run. Let the VVT kick in (tip from Mr. P).

Here's a dirty and a clean Throttle Body

Afterwards it just needs a good drive about to brun off some of the excess cleaner.

If it isnt that dirty like Tims,

It WILL need alignment on VAG-COM or VW tools. Expect to pay around £30 from a local garage and £50 from a dealer. Or do it yourself, but Im currently having trouble with that

There are stories of disconnecting your battery to reset the ECU after having done this, from experience this has never worked. Normally, I disconnect the battery first, take the TB completely off the inlet manifold and strip it down using carb cleaner and a toothbrush. When I put it back in, I always follow it with a re-alignment using VAG-COM. If you don't have the software or leads, you'll probably pay around the £30 mark to have it done.

Tim_GTi

What's "Let the VVT kick in (tip from Mr. P). ", never heard of that.

Does 'VVT' stand for Variable Valve Timing?

That's what I thought, VW didn't use that technology did they? That was used by the likes of Toyota, Nissan and Honda, but I could be wrong.

VVT introduced with later revisions of the 1.8t engine. Similar to VarioCam, the intake timing intentionally runs advanced and a retard point is calculated by the ECU. A hydraulic tensioner retards the intake timing.

From Wikipedia

Mike wrote:VVT introduced with later revisions of the 1.8t engine. Similar to VarioCam, the intake timing intentionally runs advanced and a retard point is calculated by the ECU. A hydraulic tensioner retards the intake timing.

From Wikipedia

Couldent have put it in better words myself.

Mike wrote:VVT introduced with later revisions of the 1.8t engine. Similar to VarioCam, the intake timing intentionally runs advanced and a retard point is calculated by the ECU. A hydraulic tensioner retards the intake timing.

From Wikipedia

I never knew that, you learn something new every day.

Yeh I just ment take the engine for a good hard spin, revving it up until the VVT kicks in.

I may need to get mine realigned actually, my car does seem a bit unsettled.

What are the symptons of it needing to be done?

The main symptom is it revving away, normally 1500+. If you don't touch the loud pedal, it will eventually calm down, but as soon as you breath on the pedal, off it goes again. Like I said earlier, my experience is that just disconnecting the battery does not work, other people have had this same experience. That's not to say it doesn't work, I know people on here swear by it, I think it's a bit hit and miss whether it works. If it doesn't work, then VAG-COM is your friend.

Ah I'm with you.

Mine's not like that really, it's strange.

When I cleaned mine out the Engine check light came on after a few miles. I just thought it was because of excess carb cleaner so I left it until I met up with Alex the otherday so he could clear it.

The car felt really responsive in that time, almost quite jerky, if I let off the accelerator, esp. in lower gears you'd really feel the car pull back.

Ever since the fault has been cleared though that's gone, when you let your foot off the accelerator you don't feel it half as much in the engine as I used to.

I quite liked it the way it was lol

strange Carb & Choke Cleaner is a combination of solvents and alcohols and are highly volatile, and should burn off very quickly.