Throttle body or not?

MICHELLEANNSTEENKAMP

MEMBER
2014 KIA RIO
1.4L
2WD
AUTOMATIC
80,000 MILES

Hello. Auto Tech does not go above 1,000 RPMs. The diagnostics picks nothing up. The mechanic believes it is the throttle body. But taking out the old one, and putting in a new one does the same thing. As if it is not getting enough air in? No idea anymore. Any ideas? The car has been serviced yearly at Kia, finished with its warranty now, then this happened. Just under 80,000 km on, so I really took care of it.

1 Reply

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

Just to be clear as to what is happening, when you put the vehicle in gear and push the throttle down, the RPMs do not go above 1000 and it is sluggish but does move?

Or does this only happen when in park?

If this is when the vehicle is in gear, I would agree that the throttle seems like the likely issue but if the throttle body made no difference, then we need to check the transmission fluid and see if there is metal or debris in the fluid.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-check-and-add-transmission-fluid

What I am thinking is happening is the torque converter has failed and it is not performing the torque multiplication that it should. Basically, it takes the engine RPMs, and it moves the fluid through the converter and spins the transmission input shaft. When the stator inside the transmission is not spinning like it should, the RPMs will be limited to around 1,000 and the engine will have no power. So, if this is happening, we should see something in the fluid that would point us to this.

Once we can cross this off the list, we will have to dig deeper into the engine sensors, but I think it would be wise to get a video of what this is doing so that we can be sure to be on the same page.

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