KKM

I was cleaning my throttle body and when I shot my flashlight down the throat I was surprised to see a puddle of oil in there. The car is has about 70k and never driven hard. What could have caused this and is this something I need to fix right away? I shoved a rag down there to soak up the excess.

E46CT

Normal for most modern cars. I would clean up what you can and just continue to change the oil.

And honestly I'd rethink not driving it hard mostly for other reasons. By design, *NOT* driving it hard is what's causing this. not a good thing or a bad thing (the oil pooling) it is what it is.

PSA: no matter what car you drive, drive it hard. driving it gentle all the time is the worst thing you can do for any engine.

KKM

Thanks E46CT for the comment, I did soak it up, I'm not going to worry too much more about it then. I tried to open the butterfly valve with the gas peddle method but didn't work so I manually pushed it open, which I heard is not good on some cars, but couldn't open it any other way.

E46CT

Yeah from what I understand (in addition to seeing that on all my cars) is that its due to the atkinson cycle. The intake valve is partially open during the combustion cycle which results in some oil and fuel vapor being sucked into the intake. Basically it helps MPG

humbak

AFAIK that is compression cycle ... and it is pushed rather than sucked. BTW fuel is sprayed into the combustion chamber when all valves are closed, so only some oil from piston and cylinder is available.
Still, this can only happen in Atkinson cycle engine.

E46CT

sucked meaning pressure differential. doesn't matter how it gets in