# 2014 Cruze Diesel - Cleaned throttle body and now it won't start



## DSarm (Sep 17, 2019)

Hello all.

My wife and I bought a 2014 Cruze Diesel a little over a year ago and it has been a terrible experience. Long story short, we routinely have a "chugging" problem. After going to the shop/dealer countless times and them doing regens and other work to it, I found this forum and the article about cleaning the EGR.

I decided to check the EGR today and found it, and the intake FILTHY (the shop said they cleaned it about 10k miles ago, and they wanted to replace it and charge us $2700 when the chugging happened again) I took the EGR off and cleaned, and it looks much better. 









The intake looked worse, so I knocked as much as I could loose, and used my shop vac to clean out all of the dust (the hose fit right up to the intake, so I am confident I got all of the dust.)









I reassembled everything (minus one of the two plastic spacers in the hose clamp, which I dropped and could not locate), cleared the CEL, and tried to start the car.









The car tried to turn over twice, and then would stop. I tried it again, and the same situation happened. I then checked all of the connections under the hood, and everything looked good. I tried it a third time, and it tried to turn over twice, and then stopped. The CEL never lit up on my dash, and there is nothing on the scanner aside from P2453 under the Permanent category. 

Does anyone have any idea on what I should try before I admit defeat and call a tow truck? The car has 75,000 on it.

Thank you everyone!


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

thats the throttle body

the egr is back of the engine facing the firewall


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## DSarm (Sep 17, 2019)

Well, that is step one of my issues then ?. EGR wasn't touched.


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

does the butterfly in the throttle body move freely?

did you leave it in the same position you took it out?


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## DSarm (Sep 17, 2019)

Yes, it does move freely, and I believe it is in the same position (open)


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

DSarm said:


> Well, that is step one of my issues then ?. EGR wasn't touched.


non start is sometimes egr....

all your fussing around could be not related to your non start right now if your egr is clogged....could be a coincidence, could be something electrical not plugged in properly.

legit unplug errything you already unplugged and plugged in and re plug them in just to be sure.

then remove egr and clean it.

after that, its tow time


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## DSarm (Sep 17, 2019)

Copy that. I will tackle that tomorrow after work and update you. Thank you for your quick response!


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

youll need a long t30 torx









My EGR/Throttle Plate Experience


So, as I had mentioned in the couple of recent threads about cleaning the throttle plate and EGR valve, I wanted to check ours and clean if needed to combat some running/starting issues my wife has been encountering in the past months. I started at about 8PM, so it was pretty dark, but that...




www.cruzetalk.com


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## DSarm (Sep 17, 2019)

Thank you for pointing that out! I'll be sure to borrow one from work


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

how many miles on car when you got it?

im in the top 5% as far as highway miles amongst the posters here, my intake was dirty, pics in the posted link, but lol nowheres dirty as yours....gotta think thats a city queen


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## DSarm (Sep 17, 2019)

50k ballpark. We started having the chugging problems the 3rd day after we bought it. When we originally bought it, my wife was doing probably 70% highway, but that dropped quite a bit once we had our daughter last year and my wife is now a stay-at-home mom


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

you got the throttle body off, youll totally be able to do the egr, same level of difficulty 

the gasket is a lil flimsy, be careful with it.

for shits and giggles tighten up all the hose clamps from your air filter to your turbo, see if you get any turns out of them


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## DSarm (Sep 17, 2019)

And your post was the one got me thinking about cleaning the EGR and throttle body


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

DSarm said:


> 50k ballpark. We started having the chugging problems the 3rd day after we bought it. When we originally bought it, my wife was doing probably 70% highway, but that dropped quite a bit once we had our daughter last year and my wife is now a stay-at-home mom


lotsa ppl got rid of the cars cuz dealers couldnt/wouldnt fix em, some others cuz of fear of it happening to them, then theres the regular change cars every couple years folk....who knows where your car slides in.


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

DSarm said:


> And your post was the one got me thinking about cleaning the EGR and throttle body


good news is the tb needed cleaning anyways, so you didnt totally waste your time

make sure the egr valve moves before you re install, its like a piston in/out


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## DSarm (Sep 17, 2019)

My wife loves the car, except for the chugging issue, and at this point, wants to get rid of it. 

I am walking a fine line right now - I will either be the man who screwed up the car trying to play Mr Fix-It (and she won't ever let me live it down), or I will be the hero - until I screw up the next household project.


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

DSarm said:


> My wife loves the car, except for the chugging issue, and at this point, wants to get rid of it.
> 
> I am walking a fine line right now - I will either be the man who screwed up the car trying to play Mr Fix-It (and she won't ever let me live it down), or I will be the hero - until I screw up the next household project.


the car is horrible for short drives, the emissions will kill your wallet.

the car doesnt know you took it apart and put it back....i mean the butterfly is on a spring cable, so it should be in the same position it was prior...

if something electrical wasnt plugged in, it would throw a code....

the plastic piece on that brass clip shouldnt matter, again it would throw a code...

even assuming you dont have the hard plastic elbow connected to the intake properly (letting in too much air) it would throw a code.

its gonna be the egr.


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## MRO1791 (Sep 2, 2016)

I had a very similar experience of non-start following the clean of my throttle body, no codes, no apparent issues. I ended up hooking up a battery charger and set of jumper cables to a spare battery and continued to try periodic starts, eventually is sputtered to life. No codes. What did you use to clean your TB? I had used a solvent, but that can be dangerous for a diesel, so before I even tried to start, I blew it all out with massive amounts of compressed air to be sure there was no solvent remaining, and the inability to start right away, I had assumed perhaps I did not get it all out. I'll never know for sure what is was, perhaps the EGR moved with that compressed air, and stuck, then eventually freed up. It was very, very strange indeed. Not to mention it made very unusual sounds when turning over, and it seemed the starter was cutting out, or free spinning. I was very concerned.. then very relieved when it finally started, and it has had no repeat of that issue. 

Your situation sounds similar.


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## DSarm (Sep 17, 2019)

So I took the EGR off last night and the accumulation of soot on it was no where near what the throttle body had. I did notice that the valve was stuck shut, so I ended up spraying it with a cleaner and prying it up with a screw driver. After a few minutes of wiggling and spraying, it was moving freely, so I blew it off with my air compressor and reinstalled it.

I checked all of the hose clamps on my on the hose between my air filter and turbo and everything was tight.

I tried starting the car and it would not start the first time. The second time I tried it, I thought I heard a little life in the engine, so I tried it a third time. It struggled the third time, and fired up and ran the 4th! I drove it around, parked it, turned it off, and back on again, and it fired right up!

Thank you Boraz for all of your advice! This forum will be a first-stop from now on when any questions arise about the Cruze.


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## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

You messed up the learned positions of the throttle body and it takes some time for it to learn them back.

This is stupid common for Bosch systems. I’ve ran into a few times and the best solution is to just cycle the key for about 10 minutes and usually by then the throttle valve has fixed itself.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

That EGR is a tricky ******. 

Honestly, I'm just considering it to be regular maintenance anymore. It's getting to be about time to do it again on ours.


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## MRO1791 (Sep 2, 2016)

DSarm said:


> So I took the EGR off last night and the accumulation of soot on it was no where near what the throttle body had. I did notice that the valve was stuck shut, so I ended up spraying it with a cleaner and prying it up with a screw driver. After a few minutes of wiggling and spraying, it was moving freely, so I blew it off with my air compressor and reinstalled it.
> 
> I checked all of the hose clamps on my on the hose between my air filter and turbo and everything was tight.
> 
> ...


So, you get to be the HERO Fix-It man.. until next time! Great to hear you got it figured out!


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

DSarm said:


> So I took the EGR off last night and the accumulation of soot on it was no where near what the throttle body had. I did notice that the valve was stuck shut, so I ended up spraying it with a cleaner and prying it up with a screw driver. After a few minutes of wiggling and spraying, it was moving freely, so I blew it off with my air compressor and reinstalled it.
> 
> I checked all of the hose clamps on my on the hose between my air filter and turbo and everything was tight.
> 
> ...


yep

forums like this work when ppl share their issues and solutions

your issue sounded like one i had read here before so i sent you on that path.


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## Niebs6.2 (Feb 8, 2014)

Hello All, 

Just read through the comments on this post. I have cleaned my throttle body a few times and had the "no start" issue a couple times. Its loose carbon crap getting sucked into the intake valves (after the scraping and cleaning
) and preventing a seal for the high compression required to start. Ended up cranking (and letting the starter cool) for about 3-4 minutes and it fired right up. I'm a bit more careful now about letting any build-up fall further into he intake. 

The issue with these engines is the significant PCV volume and oily residue mixing with the EGR. I am not totally sure, but i suspect the auxiliary vacuum pump for the brakes and turbo exhausts into the engine, so the problem is magnified in stop and start traffic. while its hard to do, i removed the output pipe from the intercooler and found about 1/4 inch of condensed oil vapour in it. So i also think the intercooler needs to come off and get cleaned.


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## hbilow (Sep 17, 2016)

I had the same issue after cleaning the throttle valve and egr pipe. Engine turned over easily, and sounded like it wasn’t making compression. After recharging the battery I tried again, and after a few attempts it picked up cylinders 1 at a time. I’m fairly certain that some loose crud made its way under the intake valves and kept them from seating, despite using a vacuum while cleaning.


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