Most PEA Bang For Your Buck

Cujet said:
Believe it or not, the ultra thin oil will not help MPG. Often the ring sealing is so much worse, MPG suffers, especially on experienced engines.

Guessing that camshafts are fine, as a mistimed cam will absolutely run poorly, and very likely generate codes (not always though).

If I had to take a stab at it, I'd say your O2 sensors are tired. I'd also note that some engines, for various reasons, really do poorly on fuel with ethanol. I'd try your injector cleaner. And I'd try a full tank of 0 ethanol fuel. While not a 'solid clue', near miraculous results with 0 ethanol fuel does point to lazy O2 sensors.

Use a quality 5w30 synthetic, change regularly, and consider replacing the two sensors upstream of the cats.
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I almost wrote similar stuff that you posted. I want to bring to light the fact that this car is a 2007 so my guess is it was made in 2006 with it being 2025 right now we have a car with barely over 100,000 miles in 20 years. My guess is try to find a 89 octane where the 87 is E10 and the premium is non-ethanol. The 89 will give you somewhere between a 4 and 6% average ethanol content but what I'm really thinking is the big issue is you have a tremendous amount of carbon buildup from a car that really hasn't driven that far. I would invest in the red line for the fuel tank, but also a can of the gum out multi-tune and maybe use a little than 1 oz per quart and add it to the crankcase for a 5 to 10 minute idle before you do an oil change. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the reason why the mileage is so bad is because I think there's carbon inside and build up.
 
BMWTurboDzl said:
Perhaps I'm overestimating the performance of top tier fuels.
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Top Tier additive designation requires Intake valve deposits (IVD) are less than 50mg whereas the EPA standard is 100mg.
So, while its not zero, it is significant. I would say Top Tier fuel should be sufficient for most folks, but you might want to consider running more of a maintenance dose more frequently.
 
FrequentlyCynical said:
There is very much a reason that companies now use very thin oils. It increases fuel mileage. You reduce friction, you reduce your energy needs. Works every time.

o2 sensors "get tired?" Without throwing a code?
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One needs to realize who's pushing for thinner oils, and it's not necessarily car manufacturers. The push is most evident in USA with CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) mandates, Canada is affected as well. They are not looking at each individual vehicle but all combined to contribute little to fuel economy. Engine longevity and car replacement costs are not their objectives or problems.
 
dubber09 said:
One needs to realize who's pushing for thinner oils, and it's not necessarily car manufacturers. The push is most evident in USA with CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) mandates, Canada is affected as well. They are not looking at each individual vehicle but all combined to contribute little to fuel economy. Engine longevity and car replacement costs are not their objectives or problems.
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Cars last longer than ever now.
 
Cars today last longer due to better rust protection not because of longer lasting engines. Engine longevity/reliability peaked somewhere from the late 80’s through the early 2000’s(90’s being the sweet spot). 300k miles on conventional or syn blend was common with many driven to the junkyard because of rust related problems.
 
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What wound up being the lack in fuel economy? I was going to ask are you actually going thru tanks of fuel at some alarming rate? it may just be the way ford/Lincoln mpg computer is calculating and computing the mpg. Did you hand calculate the Buick or the Buick also had a digital mpg readout. Did you do a hand calculation for the Lincoln.. also what tires on the Lincoln vs the Buick? If the Lincoln has a wider lower profile tire that can be your lower fuel economy. Or even a different rubber composition if the Lincoln tire is more sportier you can see a 2-5% in less fuel economy
 
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FrequentlyCynical said:
I've spent most of my morning reading old BTOG posts about PEA, Techron, Royal Purple, Techron, and others. (How sad!) The reason being is my recently purchased 2007 Lincoln MKZ with 125,000 miles gets horrible gas mileage. Especially when I compare it to my recently departed (sniff) 2000 Buick GS. Larger, heavier, almost double the mileage, same displacement, same HP. Real world, about 18-19 around town, 23 on the highway. The Lincoln is EPA rated at 19 and 27. That's running Mobil 1 0W-20, the Buick ran Mobil 1 20W-40. Using the built in computer, I get 13mpg on, yes, very short in town jaunts, gets up to about 16+ combined with a short freeway hop. This is SO far below what the Buick did and the EPA claim that it really urinates me off. This isn't some margin of error, climate, or mechanical issues. In fact, I'm driving the Lincoln more conservatively that the Buick!


I've been turning wrenches for over sixty years, I've gone through the obvious and accessible. As an example, pull a spark plug. Perfect in gap and condition.


I've no complaints about power or drivability.


So, I'm getting desperate and thought I'd look into a PEA fuel additive. Other than a few dollars, what's to lose? (The only other thing I can think of is that the internal water pump was replaced maybe 5K miles ago by a previous owner, and maybe the mechanic didn't get the cams aligned right, off a tooth? I don't want to even think about that fix.


Back to the topic, PEA additives. In hours of reading, so much opinion, so much subjectivity, so much bad science with a smattering of objective experiences. I figured I might as well get the most PEA bang for my buck. (I know that all PEA's are not created equal, but I need to keep this simple.) I looked up the SDS's for Royal Purple Max Clean, Redline Si-1, and two Techrons, High Mileage and Complete. Since SDS's give a range of ingredient percentages, I went with the average of low and high. Those results are:


Royal Purple, 10%
Techron Complete, 15%
Techron High Mileage, 22.5%
Redline, 31%


Since the bottle sizes and prices vary for each product, using a local national chain prices, I came up with the following cost per ounce of PEA:


Royal Purple, $10
Techron Complete in 32oz, $4.69
Techron High Mileage, $4.81
Redline Si-1, $3.44


It's obvious which one I'm going to try. Now, should I go for the total dump, or divide it by two or even three tank fulls? The latter would be the equivalent of three Royal Purple treatments. Man, a guy can go nuts trying to figure this all out.
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*Don't you mean Regane Complete and Regane High Mileage ?
 
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