Patent ID: 8794214

Claim:
A method for operating an internal combustion engine of a motor vehicle and that flushes the temporarily unused injection valves with fuel for the purpose of preventing or removing deposits wherein, the temporarily unused injection valves are flushed with fuel during an overrun mode of the internal combustion engine or the motor vehicle, the fuel which is delivered into the temporarily unused injection valves for the purpose of flushing is burned in a catalytic converter of an exhaust gas after treatment system of the internal combustion engine and a ratio between the quantity of fuel which is delivered per unit of time into the temporarily unused injection valves for the purpose of flushing and the quantity of overrun air, which flows through the internal combustion engine during the flushing operation, is adjusted in such a way that the result is an over-stoichiometric air-to-fuel ratio downstream of the internal combustion engine and upstream of the catalytic converter.