Terraclean - snake oil or not?

This guy claims a ~70% improvement in fuel economy after a Terraclean (well, he would, wouldn't he?)

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Snake oil I reckon, but what does the panel think?

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson
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I reckon you're right.

There's been stuff like this out for years.

Reply to
harryagain

Can't help feeling this is a refer to advertising/trading standards job.

It may result in the engine leaking like hell and the vehicle being off the road for 70% of the time. Thus reducing consumption accordingly.

I love the bit in the FAQ where they say you should do it every 15k miles. I don't change my engine oil that often.

Getting a car to display an insane mpg figure for a few minutes isn't that hard if you are coasting down a long slope like on the M62 coming down off the moors for instance. It tells you nothing useful.

Reply to
Martin Brown

Well, I have no idea what exactly it does, but I'd not expect any such system to be of a lasting kind of help. Mechanical things that run in oil always pollute the oil and really, unless you want to keep on doing mega cleaning, its probably going to go back to normal fairly fast. It would be interesting to chack such things after a vehicle has had a proper service oil change and tuning to see if its a real effect and not just a short live short cut. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

REDEX by robot.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

I'd say it would depend on just how bad the engine was to start with. And if it really had got so 'carboned up' that cleaning it gave a 70% improvement, it would likely 'carbon up' again very quickly as it's worn out.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Not enogh information.

What is the car (petrol diesel)? What are the published MPG figures for that make/model? Is 38 mpg seriously crap and 56 nearer to what it should be? How far and for how long had he been driving to get the 56 figure, a couple of hours first night of deliveries (so lighter right foot and watching the mpg...) or the average over at least a week?

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

How you drive is hightly relevant. My normal (pottering about) mpg is 44. Cruising at 60mph on the M6 for a couple of hours returned 63mpg, the return journey at 70mph gave 54mpg. [2.2 litre diesel, btw]

Reply to
charles

Mike Tomlinson has brought this to us :

For the most part yes, snake oil.

I would expect some improvement, but not the figures often quoted for such things unless the engine were really choked up.

Having said that, I have been experimenting with 2T added to my diesel, for the past 12 months...

After the first two tank fulls of use I took it in for its MOT last May. All previous smoke tests had shown it to be very clean, but last year it showed extremely low, about 10% of the previous year's test. So clean the tester thought his equipment was at fault.

It may have been marginally quieter and marginally better mpg - not enough difference to really convince me, apart from the smoke test.

The past couple of tankfulls, I forgot to add the 2T and happened to carry out an mpg check on a longer cruising speed run and found my mpg had quite suddenly increased from between 5% and 10%.

As said I don't usually bother checking the mpg, I just fill it and drive, so whether this was as a result of adding the 2T or the result of using the 2T then stopping using it, or due to some other effect I don't know. What I can say is that nothing at all has been done to the car, not even a service during that entire period since the last MOT.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

My first thought, too.

Reply to
John Williamson

And traffic conditions A tank full of petrol gives 330 miles of "normal" rush hour commuting. If schools are on half term and the roads are less busy I get 360 miles. If I do a couple of 200 mile journeys at speed on motorways early/late in the day I get close to 400 miles per tank.

Reply to
alan

38mpg to 56mpg is not a 70% improvement, more like 20%.

The difference in figures between 38mpg on deliveries versus 43mpg on motorways also doesn't add up. My own car would manage around 32mpg on deliveries and around 47 to 53 on the motorway.

Except having said that it managed 63mpg to my surprise just last week during a 90 mile A road run with no special care taken. Which is a much better figure than the manufacture suggests it should manage.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

I remember a long running add in Practical Mechanics and add-on unit that injected water into the carb ... again supposed to give huge mpg improvements.

Reply to
Rick Hughes
[...]

Pre-ECU cars had carbs that could not account for changes in atmospheric conditions. Consequently, they had to be set up so the mixture was never too weak. This meant that most of the time it was too rich.

Adding humidity to the air/fuel mix at any time when the ambient humidity was low did indeed give a tiny improvement in either performance, or consumption.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Lessee now, 56-38 = 18. So an improvement of (18/38)x100 % = 47% near enough.

Reply to
Tim Streater

Depends what it is ... My MPG has a minimum of 25.9 and max of 33.2 from the last 5.41 years. It's normally 29 mpg +/- 1. Long motorway runs will increase it, that 33.2 was a couple of return trips to Bristol from the top end of Cumbria. Motorway all the way apart from about 50 miles. Lot's of city driving will push it down but I don't do city driving, at least not like you find in the big conurbations.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

It worked too, in fact the Spitfire used the system during WWII.

An engine produces lots of heat which then has to be disposed of quickly and waste fully. Rather than simply wasting the heat, some of it it was used in the combustion space to turn water to steam, making the engine at least partially, act as a steam engine. Thus increasing the power output and reducing fuel consumption.

The downside was that it needed considerable driver attention and the extra moisture wasn't always good for internal parts.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

I remember Tomorrow's World doing an article on someone running a fleet of buses with water injection systems many years ago...

Reply to
John Rumm

Wiki says about Saab (which I half-remembered): "The Turbo S was a special model with factory-mounted water injection, giving an extra

15?20 PS."
Reply to
polygonum

I have fond memories of Tomorrow's World. Raymond Baxter brought the programme to life. Only after caught scrumping in his orchard 50 years ago did we discover that he lived next door. A private and very kindly gentleman. Nick.

Reply to
Nick

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