What do you really think Fuel system cleaners are for?

Joined
Mar 17, 2008
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Michigan
We know they are "fuel system" cleaners, but what are you really looking for?
Well working injectors?
Valve deposit cleaning?
Tank cleaning?
General overall cleaning?

I think for myself I look mostly for cleaner well working injectors.
 
I think you can rule out everything on your list except fuel injectors. Carbs are mostly gone, fuel tanks can be plastic, if you have DI the product won't get to the valves.
Quite fortunately, there is someone on this board that can tell you EXACTLY how effective they are at cleaning fuel injectors.
There was a recent post of some fantastic restorations of injectors by one of our members, he can tell you the whole story.
 
I expect them to clean my carburetors and injectors and the tank itself hopefully. I use Berryman at every fill up. Fuel filters are nice and clean usually on inspection way better than what it looked like when I got it.
If you are using top tier fuel, it seems like a real waste of hard earned $ to use it every fill-up. Try using it less than you are right now and see if upon inspection your stuff is just as clean. If it is then reduce again till you find the "sweet spot", but I'm pretty sure right now you're over doing it.
 
Depends on the application... gas or diesel?

Gas, I mainly need it to get the injector nozzles clean on my TSI engine.

Diesel, it's for the injection pump and nozzles to stay clean. But usually all-season additives deal with water in diesel, as well as anti-gel, and cetane improvers. So there's a 3-season version without the anti-gel but with more cetane improvers
 
Fuel system cleaners are good for occasional maintenance of the system. If you need to run these products all the time to get good performance, it's likely that your engine needs some kind of repair or maintenance. A neglected engine might also benefit from repeated dosage with these products, but it might do just as well with a few tanks of top tier and Italian tune-ups, plus a few short OCI services.
 
I like using Top Tier fuel. Recently I have moved to E0 fuel and none of the stations that sell it here are Top Tier. I have found my truck is liking the 0 Ethanol by giving me more zip and better gas milage. I experimented with the Berrymans several months back and even with E10 my milage did go up consistently from 12.5 to 14.0. Nice clean out I figured. I have now put in four fill ups of the E0 gas. Each fill made the ethanol level less and less. I fill up at the top of my tank and not the bottom. Usually 3/4 tank I do a fill up. The last fill up gave me 16.5 mpg on my 97 Ford F-150 with 4.6 engine. I will be checking to see if I can get that consistently or if that was a lucky tank.
 
I use mostly Chevron Techron Fuel SYSTEM Cleaner. A bottle every few months. Once in a while Gumout All-In-One or Red Line SI-1. With my D4-S combo GDI/FI fuel delivery, the juice does get to about everything, including the backside of intake valves. 😁 YMMV.
 
I expect them to clean my carburetors and injectors and the tank itself hopefully. I use Berryman at every fill up. Fuel filters are nice and clean usually on inspection way better than what it looked like when I got it.
Berryman B12 for me, use it every 3-4 tank fillups. ;)
 
For me, it's a once or twice annual thing I do to mainly clear any crud out of the injectors, cylinders, and valves. I'm not expecting too much out of it- I think of it along the lines of cleaning my coffee maker every six months whether I know if it needs it or not- doing it periodically keeps it from getting all crudded up and having problems.
 
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