I was chatting with a coworker who told me that all cars need cleaning of the injectors every 30 to 60k. Heck, I have a 98 Civic and a 2000 Civic and, to me, they run perfectly well with about 100k miles on them.
Isn't it that if anything goes wrong with the engine (including clogged injectors), then the mileage will drop? Both cars exhibited a mileage increase from day zero to up to about 3 years of use, then stabilized to about 34-36mpg for 50/50 city/highway driving.
So, is it true that sooner or later the servicing will have to include injector cleaning or is my mate bs-ing?
gigelus2k3 wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@m37g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
Shit no.
Yes, that much is true.
He's BS'ing. Or just doesn't really know and is guessing.
Mileage drops, starting problems happen, *then* you do something with the fuel. And even then most "fuel" problems are actually ignition troubles...
Keep in mind you need to keep ACCURATE track of mileage over the course of two years or so in order to see what your car is *really* like. Then you see if that changes, which alerts you to problems. ACCURATE is the keyword here! Don't just go by how many miles you get out of a "tank".
Modern fuels contain copious amounts of detergents. Injector problems will arise if the car sits for extended periods, or is used almost exclusively for short-hop city driving. Anything other than that and the detergents will clear off the crud.
Except unusual situations, I always fill the tank up after 320-350 miles and carefully mark the odometer, tripmeter and gas amount. Therefore, I have the whole mileage picture starting back from when the odometer was reading single digit figures :-)
Run some FI cleaner through that baby once in a while. I prefer the Chevron stuff available at Costco for about $120 for a case of 4. Buy it at the station and its about $8 a bottle!
I'm with 'jim beam' - use of "top tier" gasoline brands eliminates the need for injector cleaners. Otherwise adding cleaner (or filling up once with top tier gasoline) about every oil change is a good idea. I've learned from experience....
If your car has an automatic tranny and the weather is mild year 'round you might never notice the difference. If you have a manual tranny you will probably first notice the clutch seems to be getting "grabby" coming off the line, deteriorating over a month or two to the point of being frustrating. Amazingly, cleaning the injectors seems to fix the clutch! And cold weather can make starting tougher if the injectors are dirty.
I won't use anything but top tier gas in either my honda or toyota. Chevron and Texaco both have techron.. That's pretty good stuff for keeping the injectors clean.. I also use shell a good bit, and it has a cleaner, but I guess proprietary vs chev/tex's techron..For the most part, all the brands gas come from the same place, but it does vary as to the additives dumped in when they load the tankers. The cheap places don't get much extras in their gas. My honda doesn't like Valero/Diamond Shamrock too much.. I can tell the difference in the idle, etc vs chevron or shell. So I won't even try that stuff in my toyota.. I stick to only the good stuff, and the funny thing is, the cheap gas these days costs as much as the good brands.. Or at least here. Used to, the cheap stations really were cheaper. But not really any more. I often see them charging as much, and sometimes even more than a big brand sitting down the street. So it doesn't pay to run cheap gas around here from pretty much any angle. BTW, my honda has a carb.. Only my yota is FI... But it still seemed to make a difference on the carbed engine if I used good gas vs cheap. If I did happen to get a case of gunked injectors, I'd try a bottle of techron in the gas and go from there. That'll usually do the trick. I once had to clean out a super carboned up camry one time. The injectors were half clogged, but also the intake valves were snowconed beyond belief.. So bad, once the car warmed up, the carbon would expand, keep the valves from totally closing, and engine would die from lack of compression. So I tested a few different cleaners during that, and got a pretty comparison. Techron really is some pretty good stuff vs some of the cheapy regular "gas treatment" brands.. It's worth the extra money. One bottle in a full tank will usually clean out an engine pretty good. The more stop/starts with heat soaks, the better it works.. It doesn't do much when you are actually driving. It's when it's hot and sits, that the cheese melts and then starts blasting away when you run it the next time. Heck, adding a bottle of techron once or twice a year, even with no problems at all, probably ain't a half bad idea as far as preventative upkeep if it's FI, or prone to carbon buildup. MK
I don't know when that came about, but I noticed it not long ago. Back in the '60s the cheap stations were often about 10% cheaper than the 'majors' - say, 28 cents when the majors were 31 cents. Now even ten cents is only 3% cheaper and the top tier stations are usually not even ten cents more - as you say, sometimes less. It's a lot less than buying equivalent injector cleaner.
These cars see only Shell gas (except when not available during longer trips). Tegger's confirmation that I should see a mileage drop if something's wrong makes me feel the cars are very OK.
B.t.w., I noticed on this forum that Chevron is touted as being the best gas in US, mostly because of the Techron additive. Is it so much better than 76 or Shell? And, what's up with the joker regarding the gas sold in California being dirty ?!
chevron is ok, but not exceptional imo. it may be "clean", but it doesn't seem that great on energy content. 76 used to be good, but now sucks since it was sold to conoco. shell is ok.
in general, california gas sucks. special single state formulation is ridiculous and inflates prices. 91 octane is the highest available.
In the most sensitive car I've had, a 1984 Nissan 300ZX with manual tranny,
76 was most convenient to me but was terrible for injector cleanliness. When the clutch started getting tricky (every couple months) I'd put in a tank of Chevron or Texaco and it would straighten out within a hundred miles or so. Shell should be as good, as should BP where it is sold (not around here).
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