Fuel Additive For A 12 Month Old (10000 Mile ) Car ??

[grandpajoe]

I have just had my 10000mile 63 reg Vauxhall Viara serviced which I paid for when I bought the thing. I have been informed that they recommend a fuel additive in October and asked me to pay £17 for them to do it!! I would rather do it myself but was not cheeky enough to ask 'em which additive they use. Any suggestions welcome please. Chris

[Linotype]

Hi there: Some believe additives (fuel or oil types) are a waste of time while others say the opposite. I'm a fan of using additives because at the end of the day the name of the game is beating friction! I'm not familiar with your prices (I've retired to Cape Town) but would say why pay your garage to pour in a tin of whatever straight into the fuel tank when you could do it yourself – and most probably cheaper ... citing Halfords (oh, how I miss them!). The reason they might be suggesting the additive is they can most likely see you may be only doing 'stop/start' trips ... go with it, it's a win-win situation for you, I'd say ...

[bhg481]

Well I wouldn't pay a garage £17 to put something in the fuel system.
Having said that, since I got my first fuel-injected car in 1985 I've put a bottle of injector cleaner in every 5000 miles or so (about £5); the first three cars were petrol, the last two diesel. I monitor the fuel consumption and over the life of all the cars (all over 100,000 miles, one 200,000 miles); it didn't change so I had no problems with the injectors clogging. The advantage of doing it yourself is that you can put it in when there is the right amount of fuel in the tank and at a time when you think you can run the car until it's nearly empty before you have to fill it to get maximum advantage of the cleaner.

[DTCwordfan]

I am of the no fuel additive school, especially if you use a decent fuel that already has detergents and friction mods in it. They can interfere with the chemistry of the additives in the fuel.

I'm a person who used to be heavily involved in this field and there's only two fuels I would use and that's Shell and Chevron as they 'overtreat' their fuels especially with detergents (the interjector clogging issue). Use one of these, it's worth it and they are claiming fuel economy of 5% - in practice it's closer to 10, just the lawyer effect. If you have to, load in alternate fills of their premium grades and then normal if you want to save on the bill.

[DTCwordfan]

sorry, the claim is within the States - they are too chicken over here to advertise on the effect.

[Zacs-Master]

Large car companies spend hundreds of thousands of pounds in developing engines to run on the fuel which is available. There is absolutely no need for additives.

[bhg481]

I've done a quick sum and worked out that my fuel injector cleaner costs me about 1p/litre of fuel I use. Since I always use the cheapest fuel I can find (usually supermarket, either in the UK or mainland Europe) that works out cheaper than using branded fuel.
Zacs may well be right ie, it isn't necessary but I feel that 1p/litre on the cost of fuel is worth the gamble, especially when I've been doing it for 30 years and never had fuel-system problems or seen my fuel consumption worsening.

[DTCwordfan]

1p extra - and you don't have a well adjusted additive package to protect your engine, no decent top if the line detergent either.....

Zac's comment - try millions - and also the majors and additive cos (like Infineum, Oronite, Ethyl, Lubrizol) - it costs some $5-10 million to bring a new technology lub or fuel additive to the market (and that doesn't include the engine costs), believe me. I was involved in a start up for one and we were looking at initial start-up costs of $6 million, that for an effective NOx suppressant that would have reduced the size of the catalyst unit.

[DTCwordfan]

top-of-the-line that should have read, where the detergent is balanced against other elements such as friction reduction and sulphur capture.

[Zacs-Master]

I love all the amateur engineers who think they know better than the scientists and qualified engineers. We had one next door to us when I was a kid who told me I should always blip the throttle so that there was petrol in the carb' as I turned off the engine, ready for next time. Yeah right.

[razza]

Fuel additive is not for beating friction,an oil additive is required for that,zacs master talks a load of rubbish,no matter how good an engine is or how good a fuel is small deposits build up in the injectors,so a fuel additive is a good idea to clean them and give maximum fuel delivery.

[Zacs-Master]

Utter cobblers. For the reasons given by myself and DT. I have run quite a few cars from brand new, covering 90k in three years without 'tinkering' with anything and never had a problem (mainly Volvos & BMWs).

[DTCwordfan]

razza, there are organomolybdenum additives in fuels for friction, Exxon (Esso) advertises on this platform....

The build up of residues that look like nicotine sludges in one of those cigarette holders or a pipe, for want of a better descriptor, around the piston head and injectors, are tackled by detergents in the fuel - which is where Shell and Chevron come from, their fuels with other adds too in them. For clarification's sake, these are added at the loading gantry in the refinery and that's how the product differentation is achieved....

[DTCwordfan]

Look at the Vanderbilt web site for the use of molybdenum in both fuel and lub additives, if you wish......

[Old_Geezer]

I confess to having very limited knowledge of cars so can not answer the question in the OP but would like to contribute my experience with buying the more expensive options at garages such as Shell. A few years back, when I had a petrol driven car, I decided to invest in a few consecutive fills of the expensive stuff. Wasn't sure if I was being taken for a ride or not but noted the claim I’d get more mpg and decided that was something I could check. The result was such a small increase it wasn't proving worth the extra cost. So I went back to the ‘normal’ priced stuff. Ok it’s possible there were other benefits I could not note, and I have also read elsewhere that a regular occasional fill with the dear stuff is a good idea, but I couldn’t be stressed out remembering to do that when I wasn't seeing much in benefit. As for additives, I buy them occasionally, I usually keep forgetting to add them when I fill up so they last for ages & ages. My suspicion is that any benefits are minimal, but I couldn't know for sure.

[razza]

Just ask any mechanic about injector cleaners and I will bet 95% recommend it .

[Zacs-Master]

Of course they will. They're making money out if it.

[grandpajoe]

Well thanks for all that and it's been interesting but I am still at a loss. This recommendation from the garage is for a "one off" so I think I'll visit Halfords and ask them what they recommend. Thanks once again folks Chris

[Old_Geezer]

I reckon they are all "one off" to a certain degree. They do what they do then get burnt off. Then you get another "one off" the next time you opt for a treatment.

[Bazile]

//I'm a person who used to be heavily involved in this field and there's only two fuels I would use and that's Shell and Chevron as they 'overtreat' their fuels especially with detergents (the interjector clogging issue). Use one of these, it's worth it and they are claiming fuel economy of 5% - in practice it's closer to 10, just the lawyer effect. If you have to, load in alternate fills of their premium grades and then normal if you want to save on the bill. //

DT - If you were going to use one of the fuels you mention ,would you need fill up when the tank was at a minimum / near empty - or doesn't it matter what amount of fuel is in the tank before you fill up ?

[Old_Geezer]

I guess that depends on whether it works when more dilute. Otherwise if you always fill up half a tank at a time you would end up getting the same amount longer term as if you always filled up a full tank at a time. My guess is that the additive is simply dispersed in the fuel and so would work regardless, but it'd be interesting to see DTs thoughts.