Automotive fuel treatments

Not nearly as well as regular maintenance and not using cheap gas. Additives will do little to fix anything. That said, you can find plenty of people who use theses items and swear by them. I'd say use sparingly and watch out for placebo effect

Thanks ... I'm just concerned about the effect of "up to 10%" ethanol in most brands of gas available today.

Why? That addition of Ethanol has been going into gasoline powered automobile engines for more than a decade. Today's engines are engineered to handle it. One of the worst effects of 10% ethanol is a slight reduction of gas mileage by approx 3-4%...something you'll never notice.

However, that being said, it is reported by some sources that ethanol can be a bit more polluting (in a different way) to the environment - a claim disputed by petro and Big Agricultural concernes.

Also since the advent of modern engineering (and teflon-coating in engines) they are highly protected. If you maintain an engine properly using high quality gas, there really is no need for using such additives. Also, there already are additives (detergent claims) the major petro companies put in the various brands are of dubious value, as well.

"and teflon-coating in engines"

I think you are imagining things...

to answer the OP's question, most additives are unnecessary and only help with the car owner's peace of mind and the chemical companies profits.

much like ethanol is mostly good for corn farmers.

Are you saying that auto mfr are doing any sort of high tech coating applied to cylinder walls and valves? Perhaps I'm wrong when I call it Teflon but it is my belief that in the last decade or two there is some coating on cylinder walls and valves particularly during the break-in period.

I've read that from many different car engineering resources.

Back to the topic at hand:

This reply about one particular additive sums it up a bit:

"Here's my favorite argument AGAINST Slick-50.

If you find early ads for Slick-50 you'll see they say the active ingredient is Teflon. And now they use the Chemical name for Teflon (TPFE).

The reason for this is because Dupont (the company invented Teflon) owns the right to the name. They'll allow anyone to use the name if they actually use it...like a company that makes cooking pans and are Teflon coated. Well Dupont heard about Slick-50's claim of using Teflon in their oil additive and wondered HOW it could possibly work. From their experience there was no way Teflon could coat the moving parts of a engine. So they did their own research and found it to be GARBAGE. They then told Slick-50 they could NOT use the name Teflon in their advertising. That's why they use TPFE.

Even with all this proof that these products are GARBAGE...it's still a billion dollar a year industry. "

They use quite unheard-of chemicals like TPFE.

Maybe they should use PTFE

you may be thinking of nikasil, but that didn't work out so well for jaguar.

and isn't really in the spirit of teflon...

I'll let you dig for validation, and stick with no as my answer...

I am in agreement..nikasil..and it failed for Jaguar.

There is also something about auto engineering with the use of ceramic coatings with valves ...I theeenk.

in fact, it is the additives in gasoline that are getting most the blame for the nikasil failures of jaguar...

pistons and valves are getting a ceramic coating now.

hypereutectic (silicone infused) pistons have been around for years...

I researched a bit more and found that there were some successes, as I discovered this:

"Nikasil is a trademarked electrodeposited lipophilic nickel matrix silicon carbide coating for engine components, mainly piston engine cylinder liners. It was introduced by Mahle in 1967, initially developed to allow rotary engine apex seals (NSU Ro 80 and Mercedes C111) to work directly against the aluminum housing. This coating allowed aluminum cylinders and pistons to work directly against each other with low wear and friction. Unlike other methods, including cast iron cylinder liners, Nikasil allowed very large cylinder bores with tight tolerances and thus allowed existing engine designs to be expanded easily. The aluminium cylinders also gave a much better heat conductivity than cast iron liners, an important attribute for a high output engine. The coating was further developed by US Chrome Corporation in the USA in the early 1990s (under the trade name of "Nicom"), as a replacement for hard-chrome plated cylinder bores for Mercury Marine Racing, Kohler Engines, and as a repair replacement for factory-chromed snowmobiles, dirt bikes, ATVs, watercraft and automotive V8 liners/bores.

Porsche started using this on the 1970 917 race car, and later on the 1973 911 RS. Porsche also used it on production cars, but for a short time switched to Alusil due to cost savings for their base 911. Nikasil cylinders were always used for the 911 Turbo and RS models. Nikasil coated aluminum cylinders allowed Porsche to build air-cooled engines that had the highest specific output of any engine of their time. Nikasil is still used in today's 911s with great success.

Nikasil was very popular in the 1990s. It was used by companies such as Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Jaguar Cars and Moto Guzzi in their new engine families. However, the sulfur found in much of the world's low quality gasoline caused some Nikasil cylinders to break down over time, causing costly engine failures.[1]

Nikasil or similar coatings under other trademarks are also still widely used in racing engines, including those used in Formula One and ChampCar. Suzuki currently uses a race-proven nickel phosphorus-silicon-carbide proprietary coating trademarked SCEM (Suzuki Composite Electro-chemical Material) to maximize cylinder size and improve heat dissipation, e.g., on the engine of the Suzuki TL1000S, V-Strom 650, and Hayabusa motorcycles"

I moved my car from California to New Mexico almost 4 years ago. For the 16 years I drove it in California, I never had problems with fuel or the added ethanol used there in the SF Bay Area. Since moving to New Mexico, the summer formulas used here are gumming up the works in my now 20 year old car. My neighborhood car mechanic blames it on the ethanol and my car being 20 years old and not engineered to run on the ethanol.

If you find an additive that negates the problems caused by ethanol in older cars, please share it here.

I can't speak to anything other than the M60B40 engine, but ragman's post about sulfur in gas is in line with what I've heard as well. BMW initially used nikasil for the blocks, and after a few years recalled the motors and switched to an alusil block. I have no idea which engine is in my 540i, but the consensus seems to be that if there was going to be an issue, it already would have been one.

I had positive results with some kind of chemical that was supposed to clean injectors and just all kinds of stuff. With my '89 Dodge Sprite, it smoothed out a rough idle, and presumably helped at higher rpms. I forget what it was called, but it comes in a little, dinky orange bottle and was way expensive. So much for the technical description. It hasn't done a thing for my current carburated engine.

most of those injector cleaners are mixes of naptha and stoddrd , which is a mix of methyl benzene and paraffin.
The stoddard act like a Grabber and the naptha is the thinner.
You can make bucket of the **** for very little compRED TO THE "LITTLE RED BOTTLES".


I use a hoemader to clean out the injectors in our diesels. and the drills. With a diesel its kind of hard to tell exept when you run it past being warmed up and that preignition just quiets out.

Are dirty injectors what would cause spark plugs to constantly need replacing because the "gap" gets fouled up?

Would that be a result of the ethanol in the fuel?

I would expect fouled spark plugs to be a result of either a rich mixture, or more likely a bit of an oil leak, especially if it's only a few plugs getting fouled.

If it's the latter, they used to make a little spark plug adaptor that screws into the head before installing the plugs. They leave the spark exposed and cover up most of the rest of the plugs. They used to work well enough to be worth the investment.

I don't know about injectors, by the way.

I agree. Ethanol is a bit of a polar solvent I recall breaking in a small outbord engine on our little 12 ft tender that wed use to go into town with. The damn plugs would always foul cause of a supr rich "Break in" mix. I was always staling out in the middle of a churning bay trying to clean the gaps with wet sandpaper