I was told at the oil change place that I needed to clean all the carb build up in my intake manifold. I told them I'd have my Dad do it. My Dad told me how to do it. The bottle of the carb cleaner said to turn the engine off, but my dad said to keep the engine on. My mistake was listening to the bottle rather than my Dad. Now the idle is at least 5000 when in park or neutral. When in drive it's 1500-2000 and when driving it I can bearly stop (with pedal all the way down it's still at 1500-2000). What do I do? I asked my Dad and after much bugging he told me to locate the idle motor (I know where the throttle is but not that) and clean it. Where is that and would that fix my problem. Thank you for any help you can give me.

 

Did you spray cab cleaner into the intake and through your MAF?You probably just ruined your MAF. Stop working on cars without supervision.

 

What year is your Elantra? I think older models used a Manifold Atmospheris Pressure (MAP) sensor instead of the MAF. A MAP is a simple transducer that I think would less likely be prone to damage from the carb cleaner. If your Elantra is a relatively newer one and if you did spray the cleaner through the MAF (which measures the temperature drop of a heated membrane as air flows by it), I don't know if it would be permenently damaged, but any oily residue left on the heated membrane would cause it to malfunction. The aftermarket additive manufacturers do make cleaners specific for use on a MAF. You might try one of those. I would not suggest you monkey with the idle air control motor unless someone else with experience can help. If you got carb cleaner into the thottle position sensor, it could be messed up too.

Please ignore this advice. Nothing can be more enjoyable and build confidence that learning to fix what is wrong with your car. Yes, you will make mistakes, some will be more expensive than others but that is how we all learn. I encourage you to stay after it.

Good luck

 

Thanks ken for your help. It was actually something different. My boyfriend noticed when he was messing with the throttle he must have caused the cord that's attached to the throttle to go off its track. So we put it back on its track. I told him to stop playing with it but did he listen...
Well anyways, thanks!