Throttle Body Relearn Woes

[rmfisher321]

So, what was supposed to be simply replacing the spark plugs on my 2006 Pathfinder (well, not it's that simple) has turned out to be a mess! First, I must've bumped the heater hoses because I broke the neck off the heat pipe tube assembly that feeds the front and back heater cores. Ugh. Of course that part isn't stocked anywhere, so that has to be ordered. In the meantime, I plugged the heater core hoses with dowels so I could at least still drive it, although without heat. Lucky I live in San Diego!

Anyways, to do the spark plugs I took the throttle body off to help get to that one spark plug. That job went fine, wasn't too difficult and got it completed easily. However, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to clean the throttle body because it was pretty well caked up (139k miles). Put it all back together and then it runs horribly with the check engine light on. (code for too high of an idle).

Some quick reading told me I needed to do the relearn process, which makes sense. However, when I tried it last night ( a number of times) I just couldn't get it to work according to the procedure, and I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or what.

What's happening, is:

- I start with resetting the ECU by disconnecting the battery
- Then do the accelerator pedal position learning procedure
- Then do the throttle valve position learning (i hear the throttle plate motor moving for a second or two when that is being done)
- Then do the idle air volume learning, which is what is not working for me.

I go through the steps:

- Engine is up to temp
- All prerequisites are met
- Turn switch on 3 seconds
- Pump the pedal fully 5 times
- Wait 7 seconds, and the CEL starts flashing. It doesn't always take 7 seconds, will start doing it sooner sometimes
- Press the accelerator. This is where it diverges from the procedure. It sounds like the light is supposed to flash for about 20 seconds with the pedal depressed, but when you press the pedal after the 7 seconds when the light is flashing it will only flash for about 3-4 seconds then stops and stays on, not for the whole 20 seconds.

EDIT: I've also read where people couldn't get it to work because you're supposed to wait 10 seconds instead of 7. I believe I tried that too, because I was following a few different procedures in my attempt to get it to work, and the 20 second flash wasn't happening on either try.

I've tried it both ways, holding the pedal down for the whole 20 seconds regardless if the light stops flashing, and letting up on the pedal within 3 seconds of when it stops flashing after about 3-4 seconds, then start the car and wait 20 seconds. But every time it starts it still runs horribly and idles fast in the 900's.

I guess I'm just not sure what I'm doing wrong, if anything, and am thinking of bringing it to the dealer which I really don't want to do. Maybe I should just keep trying because I'm just not getting the timing down? Not sure if the 20 second flash isn't happening properly because I'm not timing the pedal depress perfectly after the 5 pumps.

If anyone could help me out with suggestions I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

[rmfisher321]

Update: Got it fixed. Just had to be more tenacious and keep trying. Also, made sure to do the count to 10 instead of 7, and for whatever reason it was working better for me today. After the 10 seconds and you put the throttle down again for 20 seconds, you can hear the throttle motor moving around and adjusting during that time, so I knew I had it.

One other thing that might have been throwing it off, was in the process of replacing the plugs, one of my coil packs failed, which was what was responsible for it running so horribly. Got that all replaced first, and codes cleared, then did the procedure.