I was wondering if any of you have tried some of the additive style “potions” that are on offer to help improve performance of your car or remedy issues? I know many of these are garbage and claim to do things they simply can’t. That said, I though it would be interesting to hear if anyone has used any of these and if they had ever been a success. So far I have experimented with two with surprisingly good results. Wynns engine flush: When I bought my car it had very little service history and under the bonnet it looked like it hadn’t had much tlc. The engine was very “tappy” and after doing a general service on it it still rad very noisy. I had heard love / hate stories about engine flush, and was on the fence about trying it. In the end my curiosity (and tappy engine) got the best of me and I bought a tin to try. I ran the engine up to temp, tipped half of the mixture in, and then ran it for around 10 minutes. You could literally hear all of the knocks and tapping fade away as the flush ran through the engine, and after 10 minutes of running the car had never sounded so smooth. After running it through the engine I drained out all of the oil, filled up with fresh oil, and fitted a new oil filter as well. The car has run “tap and knock free” ever since. Despite some strong criticism online the flush worked really well for me so I’d recommend it to anyone who buys a car that has had a long period of poor or unknown maintenance. Redex fuel system cleaner: So after my positive experience with the flush I have more recently tried Redex fuel system cleaner. While the PB 8V has been running pretty well of late, I couldn’t help but wonder how much crud was in the fuel system after all of this time. Sometimes the car has a bit of a lumpy idle, and while there are a number of reasons this might be happening, I thought using a “potion” to clean out the injectors might be worth a shot. So last weekend I filled up and dumped some Redex into the tank. I have only driven half a tank out since then but I have to say first impressions are pretty good. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the car feels more powerful, it bizarrely has much better fuel economy. As much as 8mpg better. That said, I am only half a tank in so will update further as I get through more of it. So that’s my experience so far. Have any of you used any of these type of products? And have you had good or bad results? Would be interesting to know.
I put BG Products diesel fuel treatment in every van I service in work, and any of my regular customers have never had injector or fuel pump issues. There's a more "heavy duty" version called BG 244, that has gotten many vehicles that weren't running sweet, back to smooth and fuss free condition. I use their oil flush in every Ford engined van, and it helps to clean them out more than just a regular oil Change. And I'd use BG 44K petrol treatment in my petrol vehicles, and they seem happier. So I'm a believer, but conversely I'd also believe a lot of the additives on the market are snake oil. As an aside, it was discussed here years ago, how cheap ATF mixed into your engine oil makes for a fantastic oil system flush.
I idee to drain a few liters of oil and add a few liters of diesel fuel to dirty 1.8t vag engines when fuel pump pickup got blocked, it worked wonders however I never rev it high so not to damage turbo ! if you read on fuel flush potions the active ingredient is kerosene…however it’s too dear to pay 20-30 quid a liter of marketed engine flush ! The diesel is a good solvent and the crud that comes out of these engines… As for fuel additives, I add regular petrol to diesel in cold winters and a bit of cheap mineral 2 stroke oil, works wonders and my CR seat exeo has 350k on the clock…last one I drove to 500k !
its hard to believe a few cc of fuel cleaner can do much when theres dozens of gallon's of solvent pumping through there every week if your engine was knocking id have the sump of and clean the pick up
That’s exactly what I did. Ran the flush though before I dropped the sump and changed the oil and filter. Pick up was actually in pretty good shape. Seems like there was just some crud floating around in the system that needed cleaning out.
To be fair, there's a noticeable difference between a tappety engine, and one with a bottom end knock... No magic potion, aside from money, will fix the latter
