Fuel Optimiser

Two words: "snake oil".

Don't waste your money. NONE of the devices that are supposed to increase fuel mileage actually do so. NONE! If it were that easy to increase fuel mileage, every car would come equipped with such devices from the factory.

Either your car is in serious need of maintenance or you need to examine and modify your driving habits. You should be getting mid-30's on the highway @65 mph and probably mid-20's in the city.

When was the last time you replaced the air filter, spark plugs and wires?

Magnets will have no effect on fuel. The fuel is plenty broken up as it's atomized into the cylinders. Provided there's no mechanical problems with your car, about the only things that you can do to improve the gas mileage is to make sure the air cleaner is clean, and use as thin an oil as is recommended for the vehicle, given the outdoor temperature. Even those things will only make a small difference, as long as the air filter doesn't look like it's caked with mud.

"Mel" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

One the magnet thing, it sounds like bull. Sorry.

But I think something's not quite right on your milage. I also have a

Your car is 5 years old now, like other people have asked, have you done the routing maintenance? Spark plugs, wires, air filter, etc? (On a less relevant note, if you're over 60k miles have you changed your timing belt?)

Just curious. Ben

OOooohhhh - stay away from these.

Not too long ago, one of the auto sites (it may have been Edmunds) had one of their advisors go out and buy a bunch of these techmo-gadgets (including this one), and try them on a number of cars.

Wish I could find the report and just include the link, so you could see it for yourself.

Suffice to say, none of these devices worked. Worse, some of them ended up causing REAL problems like fires and shorted wiring. Even those that didn't harm anything failed the tester's "common sense" test.

Bottom line - follow the advice of the others who have written you on this. Stay away from these things.

Tom Wenndt

I think Popular Mechanics also did such a test a while back. They found that the very best outcome was that these devices caused no loss of mileage. And it most cases, you lost mileage and it some cases, as you say, they could even damage your engine.

Matt

Here are some interesting reads related to this topic:

Richard Dreyfuss wrote: Specifically, thanks to a logging program for

Ben, Would you mind sharing more info about the logging program you're using on your Palm?. I've set up a Mobile DB database for this purpose have been looking for something better.

Thanks, Barry

Thanks very much to everyone who replied. I now consider myself educated.

As to the timing belt question: No , it has not been changed in the time I have had the car (1.5 years).

Although the routine maintenance has been done and recorded.

Thanks for the warning, I will stay away from the magnet thing.

Mel

It's not a matter of time, it's a matter of mileage. The timing belt has to be replaced at 60K miles in order to maintain the warranty. Although the belt could well last 100K miles or more, if it fails, it's an expensive repair.

Barry Scott wrote in news:OEzFf.403$ snipped-for-privacy@fe03.lga:

I'm using a program called fuel log, available at

Later Ben

Thanks, Ben, I'll take a look at the program.

Barry