Questions from a possible 1st time AutoRX user

[ntwrkguy1]

I've been lurking here for a while, and am really impressed with the amount of information on this site. Recently, I've started searching on lots of posts on AutoRx. While they've cleared up a few things I was wondering about, I still have some concerns/questions.

First, my car's background. I have a 2001 Ford Taurus with the Duratec V6 (24-valve) motor. At present, the car has 112,000 miles on it. I purchased the car with 87,000 miles on it in Sept. 2002. According to the garage that did the maintenance, the previous owner was very good about doing maintenance. The oil was changed at 3,000 mile interval, though never with synthetic oil. Since I've owned it, I've used Valvoline MaxLife 5w30 every 3,000 miles with a Fram filter (I know, I know...

The car performs well, and even the plugs looked fairly clean when they were changed at 100,000 miles.

My question is this: Is EVERY high-mileage car a candidate for AutoRX? The Taurus runs well, the gas mileage is very consistent (21mpg around town like clockwork), and things seem to be well. No, I haven't done a compression check, and I don't have any reason to suspect that there is something internal that needs to be corrected. However, I'm always open to things that increase/improve the performance of my cars.

Is there a situation where AutoRX WON'T do any good? Or does my car have issues that I'm not even aware that AutoRX will clear up?

 

[darkdan]

There are situations when the results might go unnoticed without testing, but all cars over a certain mileage can benefit from it.

For instance, your engine may not be super dirty to lower your compression by dirty ring packs...yet.

So you use auto-rx and don't notice much of a difference. However, in another 50k miles your ring packs are still pretty clean.

If you didn't use auto-rx who's to say you might get that one last spec of dirt in there in 2 months from now that broke the camel's back?

Worse comes to worst you're prolonging when your engine will actually "need" it.

 

[XS650]

I think it's not a bad idea to use it once on your engine as preventative maintenance. On a clean good running engine, I thnik it's main advantage is cleaning the ring pack and freeing the rings. It's also supposed to help the seals.

Some people think you should use it accodrding to the isntructions, no matter what. I'm more inclined to use it if there are symptoms that it maight make go away, or at about 100k for preventative maintenance.

If you don't have any problems or running or economy issues, do take acompression test before and after to see if anything happened.

Either it helped my GMC with 100k miles or there was big fortuitous coincidence that made it run better than it had in years shortly after I fed it some ARx. YMMV if you aren't aware of any running problems.

 

[Russ]

My 95 Galant with 140,000 miles was running fairly well also (among other things, consistently getting 30+ mpg on the highway). I decided to try Auto-Rx on it. About 700 miles into the clean phase the engine got just a little bit more "umph" to it (seems to accelerate a little bit faster, and run just a bit smoother). Once again, no hard data to show, just another "butt dyno" report

. The portion of the valvetrain visible through the oil fill openning looks just like it did before the treatment, but the oil filter mounting surface looks unusually clean.
Results were by no means dramatic, but noticeable. I would guess that an engine with 112,000 miles would see some benefits from Auto-Rx, even if only minimal.

 

[Shaman]

If you think the car's engine is in good shape, and decide to use it, the worst you will do is waste money. If it gets cleaned, you will not have. If it springs a leak that was not there before that has to be repaired, you have wasted money.

 

[ALS]

The old engine in my 1987 Volvo 740 Turbo went 282,000 miles before self destruction occured (RodKnock). Had I found Auto-RX two years before I may also not have had my Turbo charger seize at 247,000 miles. It seized becaused it was totally sludged and coked up even though I performed 3,000 OCI with conventional from day one. When I dropped the pan to put in a new gasket around 260K miles there was sludge in the bottom. So when I dropped in a new motor it got from day one 5000 mile OCI with Mobil 1 and on the Auto-RX maintenance program. At 37,000 miles I have to have one of the cleanest engines on the board.
I picked up a 97 960 Volvo with 66K miles and at the next oil change it is starting an Auto-RX cleaning. Only reason I'm waiting is there is only 1500 miles on the Synthetic oil in it now.
If I had 112K miles on a motor that had 3000 mile conventional oil changes that car would be having a Auto-RX cleaning as soon as possible. My two cents from a guy that has been there and paid the price of a dirty engine.

 

[ntwrkguy1]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Does AutoRx give you the specifics on what to do (drain interval, type of oil to use during cleaning/rinse phase, etc), or is there a discussion in the forum that I haven't uncovered yet? I think I'm going to go ahead with it, especially after my transmission guy told me he SWEARS by the AutoRx for Transmissions (which, if I understand correctly, is the same as the stuff for the car).

 

[Bio-T]

For application instructions and also a forum on Auto-Rx you can go here:

Auto-Rx Website

 

[MONKEYMAN]

Auto-RX has a forum where you can ask questions or search for info on the details.

http://69.25.72.74/ARXforums/

Go there, and click on home. It will take you to the basic instructions for this product.

I am using it in both my cars, a 93 Sentra with 170,000 miles and a Saturn SL2 with 88,000. I am on the second application, and both vehicles have never run better. I am also using Fuel Power (FP60) to clean the combustion chamber. For me, it has been a great combination. Still have a seal leak on my Sentra, but performance is up.