7 short blinks of the CEL when that first pin is grounded would indicate TPS.

When the car is warmed up (but even then not always), I'll get a cyclical rough idle at stop lights: 1 second of shuddering then 1 second smooth.

My el-cheapo scanner wont read the code for some reason. Assuming Autozone tells me that it is indeed the TPS, are there any consequences if I just keep driving it? Along that line of thinking, how do I clear the CEL - anything more convenient than disconnecting the battery?

Just looked up the price of a throttle body: $470 online, $670 MSRP - that's a little insane, in fact, it's a lot insane.

 

Bring it by and let me get the DTC... Sounds like a TPS sensor has crapped out.

 

BTW, don't reset the PCM. That clears all the freeze data as well.

 

So I unplugged and plugged back in the connector to the TPS about half a dozen times. Seems to have improved the situation, drove a few times - no idle problems and the CEL disappeared this morning.

Hopefully this solution will last. I think that at the miniscule currents that are going through the sensor, the slightest bit of oxidation on the connections would be significant.

 

Just a bit of closure for this thread, for those with TPS OBDII codes, and others that may search and hit this thread in the future.

If you've got the TPS OBDII code(s) being thrown, and you're out of warranty, I'd highly recommend unplugging and plugging the connector a few times.

I've now driven over a week and the rough idle has disappeared, and the CEL also disappeared.

Maybe I'm just lucky that it wasn't the sensor, just the connection. I do wonder, however, how many (if any) throttle bodies have been replaced unnecessarily.