Techron and Lead in UOA

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I have seen many UOA where the Lead was slightly higher than normal and techron was believed to be the reason. As I was filling my tank with chevron gas last night I thought maybe this will make my upcomming UOA show more lead. Any thoughts on this gas effecting the UOA? I don't normally use this gas but was almost out as I approached the Chevron station.
 
housemountain (shan jia) pretty much nailed it. In fact that article (interesting) at best says Techron may have lead scavenging compounds.....not actual Pb...
 
I e-mailed Chevron about this precise thing some time ago (that e-mail is not here, if I still have it) and they flatly denied that Techron itself would show up as lead in a UOA.
 
Some of these fuel adds have fairly aggressive solvents in them. A small amount of unburned additive continually end up in the crankcase along with the fuel.

The theory is that this fuel additive in solution in the oil will scavange some of the softer lead off the bearing overlays. It may also remove a small amount of copper from the core of the engine cooler ....

TS
 
ZZ,

If you run Redline at the maintenance dose of 1-2 ounces per tank, I don't think it will affect anything. I used the Amsoil PI this way with almost every tank of fuel in my Toyota engine and my lead levels were always very low. If you run full bottle of Redline every 3000 miles, it could very well skew the Pb levels a bit. Small amounts of fuel additive will probably evaporate out of the crankcase and the concentration will remain very low. A large dose of fuel additive all at once could result in significantly higher concentrations in the crankcase - at least for a time - and could react chemically with softer bearing materials.

TS
 
I believe that the posts you are referring to are cases where additional Techron fuel system cleaner has been added to the gas tank. Chevron sells Techron concentrate which is often reputed to be a good agressive fuel injection system cleaner.

I would not be at all worried about using Chevron brand gasoline.

John
 
Hm so you say if I run full bottle in the one tank(as I did) then my UOA might show higher lead levels? Does it matter that I made a long trip when I put it in which used whole tank of gas at once?
 
If I was to sort through my oil analisis I'm sure I have dozens with Techron that show no lead (or 1 ppm at 7,000 km). I use it every 5000 km in my 8 gasoline engined cars and pickups. If Chevron Gas was available here I would buy it.
Note: for best cleaning, I do not put it in for a trip, but when the car will be used intermitently, leaving it in more time.
 
Chevron Techron additive concentrate doesn't have lead or aggressive solvent in it. I think the solvent they use in the concentrate is similar to low aromatic solvent.

It has an organic detergent/dispersant which is slightly different from the additive used by other additive suppliers. This additive is strong, it'll clean injectors if added to just one tank.

However Chevron do recommend not to use too much of the concentrate, I think its no more than 3 or 4 bottles per oil change. This is because some of the additive does get down into the crankcase, and if there is too much it will affect the oil. I think it might make the oil thicken.

But I've used Techron additive concentrate regularly for over 300,000 km (200,000 miles) in a number of vehicles and had no trouble, and never noticed elevated lead levels when doing UOA.

[ June 10, 2004, 05:12 PM: Message edited by: SteveS ]
 
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