Piston soak : How would you proceed?

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Jan 3, 2020
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Brittany
I've inherited a little 2006 Citroën C2 with the 1.1 TU engine. This car belonged to my grandmother and only did short trips to get groceries. It now has 163 000 km on the odo. The poor thing maybe had an oil change every two or three years. Needless to say, there's some thick varnish under the valve cover but no sludge so i don't really care about that.

When i changed the oil, there was only 1L left in the crankcase over a 15 000 km OCI just like the previous oil change i did back in 2017. It smokes a bit under heavy acceleration. I plan to give this car to my girlfriend as a little city commuter. I've been able to slowly cure oil consumption in the cars i owned with many short OCIs and extensive italian tune-ups but i don't plan to do that with this car.

I really want to try a piston soak. How would you proceed given what's available to me? Here's a list of what i can buy at the stores :

- Gasoline fuel system/injector cleaners (CHEAP)
- Diesel fuel system/injector cleaner (CHEAP)
- Engine flushes (CHEAP)
- Carburator cleaner (aerosol)
- EGR cleaner (aerosol)
- DPF cleaner
- White spirit
- Turpentine
- Kerosene
- Diesel
 
Yeah i'd like to try this or B12 but not available to me unfortunately. Are fuel system cleaners close in term of composition?
I use the can of Berryman in my truck each fill up it works good from my experience. My dad uses Seafoam in just about everything and so far it has kept his engine and pistons clean maybe try that.
 
I thought about trying it while sparkplugs are out, and the car won't move until a few weeks anyway, plenty of time to let something soak. And the way my gf drives and with the 1 or 2 miles commutes, we're far from an italian tune-up and i doubt frequent oil changes will cure anything in this case.
 
Flushes and fuel system cleaners are cheap but i could also brew something that would cost me zero.
 
I understand oils do most of their cleaning when at full temp (90-120 C). (Not engine temps, oil temps.) This along with a few short change intervals is more likely to clean up the ring lands & grooves than nearly anything else you might try, although I guess it could not hurt to try a soak. So maybe your girlfriend can drive it longer distances on occasion or at least let it warm a couple extra minutes before heading out on her short commute.
 
I have used a "home brew" seafoam - it's on the web. I used it as a piston soak. Relatively ineffective. B-12 is the best thing you can get, and it's cheap (at least in the US). We are talking $6 to do a V8.

If you really think consumption is coming from stuck/gummed rings or clogged drain holes, "oil" is never going to touch it. Soaks might dent it.
 
Maybe just do a few short OCI. How about running 15w-40 diesel oil to try and clean it up? Can you get this car some Highway driving once a week?
 
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