Idling too high?

Idling too high?

So yesterday, I drove my '01 Corolla all the way from the coast up to a small town an hour away from Hattiesburg MS because the whole family was evacuation for Hurricane Gustav. I logged a good 2.5 hours of mostly highway driving, and noticed something peculiar. Whenever I would disengage the cruise control or let off the throttle to coast, the car wouldn't slow down as quickly as anyone else's. This resulted in me having to hit the brakes a lot more than I wanted to, or else I'd end up rolling into the car in front of me (and I was quite a safe distance back).

This was kind of familiar, as a Ford Taurus I'd owned had done the same thing, and it was idling too high. I never found the cause on the Taurus, because it completely died of transmission failure and I got rid of it.

Anyway, I figured maybe the corolla was idling too high, so when I came to a red light, I shifted into neutral. The car idled at just under 1000 RPM. As far as I knew, it was supposed to idle at around 800 RPM.

Am I right in assuming my idle is too high?

I've checked the throttle cables, and they're not the problem. I also inspected the throttle body, and it's quite clean.

What could be the cause?

Or am I just paranoid?

Ok, thanks for the advice guys.

Every car I've owned before now has had multiple problems, and I think I still can't believe I've got a perfectly good car now. Especially with that taurus. The thing would slam into gear the idle was so high.

I recently got this corolla (had it for 2 months now), and I've changed out most of the fluids. I haven't changed the tranny fluid since I bought it, so I should probably just give that a try.