Italian tuneup

[skyship]

Originally Posted By: ChuckBerry
Well, both Mopar and GM make their own in house top engine cleaners, so theirs aren't third party snake oil. We can debate as to what degree of optimal the use of chemicals to clean deposits is versus high speed highway runs but their use DOES produce results, OEM have their own in house brands, and they are MUCH more economical than spending $10-20 on fuel each week solely for the purpose of removing carbon.

For the price of the fuel you burn in a year strictly as a carbon removal service ($520-$1040 dollars, or more) you could probably get the engine torn down and properly cleaned to showroom new. But I think dumping a bottle of Techron 3-4x per year in the fuel and adding an extra oil change is sufficient for most people.

The only thing you can't get around afaik is carbon fouling of the catalytic convertors. Dunno how often you practically need to heat them up to burn off carbon.


GM top end cleaner is for direct application and there are a number of similar direct use cleaners that do work, but I have never seen a fuel additive get rid of serious deposits in a cylinder.

 

[bdcardinal]

Originally Posted By: ChuckBerry
Given the cost of gasoline, the general advice I hear around here of taking an hour or so drive once a week to burn off fuel and water dilution and, as in this thread, to burn off carbon deposits, seems terribly uneconomical. Running a $5-10 fuel system additive prior to each oil change, while perhaps not ideal, appears to be significantly cheaper than $10-20 each week in fuel. Add in an extra oil change or two per year to drain fuel and water contaminated oil and you are still coming out well ahead of the weekly drive cost.


It might not be economical, but it is fun. I bought my Mustang expressly for fun driving. Luckily we have some world class mountain roads around here with amazing scenery that I can take advantage of pretty much whenever I want to. Frankly the Mustang is cheaper to operate than my Volvo, even when holding the engine between 4000-5500 for long periods of time. The previous owner put on wider Steeda wheels with 275/40/17 tires and never took it above 3000 revs because of the bad gas mileage, a few mountain blasts seemed to fix that.

 

[jhMalibu]

My buddy has a 13 Elantra. He is probably 90-95% highway. Every so often when he has to floor it, he'll get a horrible carbon cloud out the tailpipe. So I believe that the tuneup still has relevance with modern engines.

My Ranger, on the flip side, is mostly city and does really benefit from a highway blast every so often. I can really hear the difference in engine running afterwards.

 

[mechtech2]

Originally Posted By: skyship
Originally Posted By: ChuckBerry
Well, both Mopar and GM make their own in house top engine cleaners, so theirs aren't third party snake oil. We can debate as to what degree of optimal the use of chemicals to clean deposits is versus high speed highway runs but their use DOES produce results, OEM have their own in house brands, and they are MUCH more economical than spending $10-20 on fuel each week solely for the purpose of removing carbon.

For the price of the fuel you burn in a year strictly as a carbon removal service ($520-$1040 dollars, or more) you could probably get the engine torn down and properly cleaned to showroom new. But I think dumping a bottle of Techron 3-4x per year in the fuel and adding an extra oil change is sufficient for most people.

The only thing you can't get around afaik is carbon fouling of the catalytic convertors. Dunno how often you practically need to heat them up to burn off carbon.


GM top end cleaner is for direct application and there are a number of similar direct use cleaners that do work, but I have never seen a fuel additive get rid of serious deposits in a cylinder.


You need a personal moderator to stop your nonsense advice.
Really.

 

[FoxS]

Originally Posted By: skyship

GM top end cleaner is for direct application and there are a number of similar direct use cleaners that do work, but I have never seen a fuel additive get rid of serious deposits in a cylinder.


If my car would not go past 80mph and was shaking and noisy, and all I did was use a PEA cleaner, and the problem went away, would you say I had serious deposits that the fuel additive got rid of?

 

[Tzu]

When we were kids growing up, my dad had a 1978 Chevy Malibu wagon with the 305 V8 2bbl carb. We would occasionally ride in the back with the window up and the tailgate locked (of course) when he decided to run the back roads home. He would comment the car was not running so smooth and would decide to "blow it out" every now and then. He would just shift it into neutral at 55 mph and hammer it down over and over about 5 times holding it for a few seconds each time. The black smoke coming out looked like we were in a tractor pull! From a distance it looked someone did a nasty burnout because there was little wind to blow the smoke away. My brother and I laughed at each other and that made dad smile too. At the next stop he would see if that trick worked, and he usually said, "that's better". It did feel smoother. Years later my brother took that same car to a demolition derby because the boxed frame rusted away near the rear axle. 257,000 miles and rust was the enemy. Engine worked fine still even after the derby, but the transmission was toasted. Ha ha.

 

[ChuckBerry]

Originally Posted By: bdcardinal

It might not be economical, but it is fun. I bought my Mustang expressly for fun driving.


I'm talking about short trippers that rarely if ever get up to operating temperature. Many people don't use their vehicles as sources of entertainment, and can save quite a bit of money by using chemicals and more frequent oil changes as opposed to spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars solely on fuel in a year as a service for their engine.

There is also this post by Molakule that I read many years ago that would indicate that a long highway drive ISN'T good for a short tripper: http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2162951#Post2162951