Fuel and Oil Additives

ex_tdier

That's true but all fuel has sulfur but since going back to gasoline I have been in touch with Shell and Chevron (I won't touch Exxon) and they say the same thing that their sulfur content varies not only from refinery to refinery but day to day or season to season.

smokey75

"Okay but don't confuse correlation with causation. Your fan belt might break regardless of the gas you use"

Fair enough...

shipo

"Having owned a diesel, I can confidently say that the manufactures have advised me that they have a minimum and maximum rage of sulfur content in their fuel. This can vary considerably and to me, it's quite shocking but still within the [wide] tolerance level of federal standards."

That information is no longer accurate. As of last year ALL road use diesel fuel is considered to be "Low Sulfur Diesel" and by law cannot exceed 15ppm.

Best Regards,
Shipo

texases

Here's some info straight from the horse's mouth (my brother, the refinery engineer):

- Regarding gas detergency, I am not aware of any additional detergency standards beyond Federal ones.

- As far as the differnce in gasoline brands go, in general, the only difference between gasoline sold to independents vs. branded jobbers in the "Ad Pac" added to the base gasoline at the truck terminal. Gasoline sold at Chevron has the "Techroline" additive package, while gasoline sold at "Bubba's Bait and Gas" has an ad pac that should meet minimum Federal standards.

- Fresh vs. Stale Gas: Of course, if Bubba does not maintain his in-line filters, underground tanks and/or he has low throughput at his gas station, the net effect may be gas which is somewhat "stale" and/or has more impurities than a similar gallon at Chevron's Super Mart. However, I would expect that in this day and age, these differences are much less of an issue than say 20 to 30 years ago.

- Edit regarding sulfur in gas: In general, the sulfur specification for gasoline is 30 PPM.

blane

This has been a very interesting discussion. It's kind of like the age old regular vs. premium discussions. If it makes no difference in your driving, why spend the extra money just to fill the coffers of BIG OIL?

I'll keep filling my tank wherever the fuel costs less, as long as its not out of my way.

Has anyone here changed their thinking?

shipo

"It's kind of like the age old regular vs. premium discussions."

VERY different issues. One is fueling your car with the proper grade of gasoline to allow it to perform (both from a power and mileage perspective) to its best, the other is whether Brand-X fuel is of a sufficient quality for the average car.

Best Regards,
Shipo

blane

Shipo,

I disagree with your contention that these are two different issues. The SINGLE issue is the hype that the oil companies have used forever. They are always trying to differentiate their products from those of their competitors, as well as to convince those gullible enough to listen, that they should be using premium grade fuel. If the engine manufacturer specifies the use of regular grade fuel, and if the engine runs fine with any brand of it, the only benefit is to BIG OIL when they oversell their product for dubious reasons.

shipo

Dude, you're barking up the wrong tree here. There are literally thousands and thousands of published scientific studies dating back to the 1920s that show the effacacy of fuel with higher anti-knock ratings in high compression engines. Like it or not, an engine designed to run on premium fuel will develop less horsepwer and return less gas mileage if it is run on regular fuel. Said another way, for such an engine, it is a fool's economy to burn regular fuel when premium is available.

The flip side of course is burning premium fuel in a car designed for regular. Same result, it will develop less horsepower (marginally) and return lower gas mileage than if it was fueled with what the engine was designed for.

Best Regards,
Shipo

blane

Shipo,

Please read what I wrote "If the engine manufacturer specifies the use of regular grade fuel, and if the engine runs fine..." I wrote nothing about (as you wrote) "fuel with higher anti-knock ratings in high compression engines" or "an engine designed to run on premium fuel".

Please, let's keep the discussion on track and respond to what is written, not imagined.

shipo

What I was responding to was this:

"I disagree with your contention that these are two different issues. The SINGLE issue is the hype that the oil companies have used forever."

I maintain that the reasons for using name brand fuel are VERY different that the reasons for using Premium fuel. You seem to think otherwise, and that's fine, but don't try to tell someone who drives a BMW or a blown Audi that their purchasing of Premium fuel is a waste of money.

Then there was this comment:

They are always trying to differentiate their products from those of their competitors, as well as to convince those gullible enough to listen, that they should be using premium grade fuel."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there has been no advertising espousing the use of Premium fuel in cars that don't call for it for quite some time now.

Best Regards,
Shipo

user777

gentlemen, could someone be so kind as to tell me what constitutes a "high-compression" automobile engine?

shipo

Depending upon the combustion chamber shape, the magic dividing line that signifies "high compression" is pretty much a normally aspirated compression ratio range between 10.0:1 to 10.5:1. Honda has pushed their non-Si Civic right to that very edge as they still recommend Regular even though the compression ratio is 10.5:1. That said, I don't believe that there are any engines currently on the market above 10.5:1 that recommend anything other than Premium.

Best Regards,
Shipo

texases

Scientific American had a one-page article on whether premium's needed, and they referred to an 8:1 compression ratio- must have been getting their info from a '74 Chilton's.

shipo

I remember the day when 8:1 was indeed high compression. Geez I'm feeling old. ;-)

Best Regards,
Shipo

Mr_Shiftright

I think the term came into use many many years ago when most engines were really LOW in compression...that is, prewar flatheads. So when GM introduced the "high compression V8" (basically the Rocket 88 Oldsmobile) around 1948, something like 8:1 compression WAS a big deal.

Of course, compression ratios are still very important to engine builders....many the amateur has come to grief by not doing his mathematics when shaving heads and/or changing the shape of piston tops or adding bolt-on turbos.

qbrozen

Anybody ever heard anything good or bad about CRC Guaranteed to Pass?

I was searching around for info on our BMW's catalytic when I found a site detailing several procedures different owners have gone through to get their E30 bimmer to pass emissions. I'm wondering if I shouldn't give this a shot before buying a new cat. I mean, it really just barely failed.

Unfortunately, I don't think it will help my Alfa.
I tried the old Italian tune-up last weekend and she still failed, although the numbers were better.

texases

Nothing about CRC in particular, but I have heard if you're borderline, one of these types of additives might do it - I guess they're some kind of cleaner? How close was it?

qbrozen

i don't have the numbers on me, but I believe it was about 20% over on NOX. Other measurements were well within limits.

20% sounds like alot, but to put that in perspective, I dropped the Alfa's CO by 33% by just driving it hard before getting to the station.

Mr_Shiftright

Yeah go for it. I used a similar product to squeak through with a Jeep Cherokee. So it worked. Well, I also drove the hell out of it just prior to the test and the testing guys were Russians, so you know...we all worked together.

ex_tdier

- Edit regarding sulfur in gas: In general, the sulfur specification for gasoline is 30 PPM.

While the sulfur content average is 30 ppm, the sulfur standard has a maximum per gallon concentration of 80 ppm.

ex_tdier

That information is no longer accurate. As of last year ALL road use diesel fuel is considered to be "Low Sulfur Diesel" and by law cannot exceed 15ppm.

Correct, but in Canada it wasn't until late last year and not until last month for Off-Road / Locomotive & Marine Fuel which has a spec of < 500 ppm. Many truck drivers still use colored (off road) diesel fuel because it's cheaper. And, to make things interesting, Canada has no regulatory compliance date for when the terminals must be transitioned to ULSD.

ray80

Might work. I had a domestic vehicle that failed due to NOX and ened up taking it to an official emmisions ( State has official fix-it places we MUST use sometimes) place and they ened up running about a dozen carbon treatments through it to get it to pass (barely even then).

sky23213

I'm so glad we don't have those tests anymore. I got to take a car only once, then the state closed all the stations - I believe the reason was that the cars that did not pass were under 4% of the total tested, so there was pretty much no point doing it.

Mr_Shiftright

I always wished there was technology good enough to just have "sniffer" cars following traffic. That way, only the gross polluters would get taken off the road and we could abolish testing. I'm sure a fleet of sniffers would be cheaper than this massive testing program. It's probably 1% of the cars doing 50% of the polluting.

The sniffer cars could have giant claws, like those automatic tree-cutters :P

wlbrown9

Memphis has one refinery. Not sure about right now, but a number of years ago just about all gas sold in this area came from the same tanks with custom additves for each brand or distributor. Amoco was the only one to bring in gas from their own refinery separately. Wonder how that has changed since the BP/Amoco merger.

sky23213

shoparound

from a cold start, automatic trans moved from P to D, the engine chugs and almost dies. when throttle is evenly applied, the engine feels like power is decreasing. if engine is allowed to warm up for 5 minute the problem diminishes; after complete warm up (after a several mile drive) the start up and go is no problem. the *dealerships* change fuel filter and that's it. except for this unfortunate cold start problem, car rides and drives perfectly. anybody have a guess what to do besides buy a new car? thanks.

shipo

While I've never cracked the hood of a G20, some older fuel injected cars had an extra injector in the intake plenum for the cold/rich cycle. If your car is so equipped, then it sounds like that extra injector is clogged or otherwise inop.

Let us know.

Best Regards,
Shipo

1racefan

Doesn't this also sound like a bad throttle position sensor? I had this happen once - would only happen after the car had set for several hours. After shifting into gear, and pressing the gas that initial time, car would barely move, and act like it was going to cut out. After a couple of seconds, it would then go, and would be perfectly fine until the next start up after sitting several hours.

My dealer replaced my TPS, and bam, issue gone.

P.S. - car seemed worse when the weather was hot

tylertwouncles

Great Point Mr shifright. I have a dodge neon and travel 240 miles a day to work and back. I tried Enviromax Plus in my car and nothing Big happened. I might of felt a little change, for example your car seems to run better after you have taken it through the car wash. However, the money I might of saved on the additive , I could have bought fuel and saved myself the time and effort of adding enviromax. I was introduced to enviromax by my father in law. some MLM salesman suckered him into spending 100 bucks to be a dealer. He cant leave his lazy boy so how the hell is he going to sell fuel additive with that said I tried it for him and I say he should have spent the 100 bucks on a enima.

Mr_Shiftright

The arguments for fuel additives that allegedly produce amazing jumps in fuel economy just don't make sense. The claims defy logic and automotive science.

For one thing, any automaker would give millions...no, hundreds of millions....for such a simple solution to increasing their fleet mileage averages. What a great piece of publicity! What a great marketing tool! What a great leg up on the competition! Just dump in a can of additive during EPA testing! WOW! 5 mpg more than your competitor's product.

For another thing, such amazing gas mileage increases would improve...no....SOLVE...the world's energy crisis...can you imagine the immense global impact of a 20% reduction in America's oil consumption OVERNIGHT?

But alas, the automakers refuse to add it to their engines, and instead spend $100 million dollars on engine development to gain 1 mpg. The fools? And the US government does not solve the energy crisis, but blindly turns an eye to this "miracle" before their eyes.

So how do you explain this?

Ah, then CONSPIRACY comes up, and really, conspiracy is a very poor explanation for the unexplainable, because it skips past a far more unpleasant thought--that automakers and the government know that these additives cannot in fact, increase gas mileage substantially, if at all, once they are put under rigorous scientific testing.

qbrozen

Must be that time of year again.

Mr_Shiftright

I'd secretly fill the acetone bottle with gasoline and see what happens to the magic results. Nothing like some blind testing.

ray80

WOW what a great idea. More torque, more HP and better MPG with that magic additive. Plus the other stuff leading to certain emmisions failure for newer tests (in states that require it) and the $XXX hundreds of dollars that might be required to fix (or let it fail) secondary test. I like it

wtd44

Faced with what is likely a rear main engine oil leak, although admittedly quite small, I have poured in a dose of CD-2 which is apparently an engine seal sweller. According to the bottle, I must allow up to 1K miles to get the full effect. I am wondering if this modestly priced additive is likely to be effective. Any opinions on it? :confuse:

Mr_Shiftright

It might work for a short time but then the leak will probably be worse after that

wtd44

Well... I'll add another bottle at the next oil change? :confuse:

isellhondas

The problem is there are seals in the engine that will "swell" up along with that rear main seal. Some seals like valve stem seals, you don't want to swell up.

Unless this car is an old beater of little value, I would either have the seal replaced or live with the leak and hope it doesn't worsen.

wtd44

Unfortunately, fixing a leak via engine repair is always the best solution!

chesty

Motor Oil & Additives are very important when it comes to taking care of your vehicle, so don't miss a minute giving your car the best maintenance or repair if need. Fix this leak asap. Don't you know that improvements that add up to splendid protection for 15,000 miles is courtesy of this oil additives? I've done this before with my car and it all went fine after i fixed the leak. I also checked my Cadillac fuel tank to see if there's any problem. But when things become more complex, i seek for professional help via engine repair.

zoomzoomn

:shades: Fuel and oil additives run the gambit from harmful to beneficial. The reality in a capitalist society is that everybody will tell you what you want to hear and sell you what cures your ailment - regardless of the solid truth about the product. Buyer beware!!!

That being said, I have used products over the years that I could actually see, feel, or hear the benefit afterwards. After using their products for years, I actually worked for BG Products (see bgprod.com) for awhile. Part of the training included a trip to their headquarters, laboratory and production facilities in Wichita, Kansas. What I thought that I had known by previous years of positive experiences using their various products was just blown away by the knowledge gained after that visit.

BG develops all of their main products in house. They have a lab to develop products and an engineering department for testing. Heck, they even use employee vehicles for long term testing. They are quite thorough and their products do offer benefits to the systems for which they were created.

While there are plenty of benign products out there, BG is not one of them. They are not the cheapest, but they do strive to be the best. Two main products for consideration should be their 44K fuel additive that is used every 10-15K miles and MOA oil additive that is used every oil change. Check out their web site and try their products and you will see for yourself what a good additive along with regular maintenance can do for your vehicle!

shipo

And your point is???

fljoslin

I am a firm believer in use of gas treatments to maintain the function of fuel injectors. and to a lesser degree carburetors. For example, I have a 99 Intrepid purchased new and about three years ago it developed an engine miss. This car has the 3.2L engine and has always been incredibly smooth. I diagnosed the code as miss on cylinder #2. I changed the coil from cylinder #2 with one from another cylinder with no change in the miss. Then I replaced the spark plugs again with no change. At this point I decided to take the car to my local Chrysler dealer who I "trust". They charged me for 1/2 hour labor told me the plugs were new and said that they would recommend a fuel injector gas treatment. The mechanic took me aside and suggested that I get the biggest SUV size gas cleaner and do that once or twice. I did that and the car has run just fine since. Every couple of months this car seems to run not quite as smoothly so I get a gas treatment which smooths the engine up nicely. I have had similar experiences in other vehicles. As to type or brand of gas treatment, I try to get the biggest cheapest petroleum based variety that is available. Many contain methanol as the main ingredient which I do not think as as effective.

isellhondas

In the dozens and dozens of cars I have owned, I have NEVER used a gas additive and I have NEVER had a problem.

Mr_Shiftright

I've only used fuel additives for diesel cars. I think that's a good idea. But I've never used a gasoline additive in dozens of my former cars driving hundreds of thousands of miles. Not once incident in all those cars and all those years. I'm sure injectors do go astray now and then but I guess I've been lucky.

I think the normal additives in good gasoline do the trick. In diesels, you have other factors such as algae growth, gelling, etc to watch out for.

shipo

Between my wife and I we've logged well over one and a half million miles and never once used a fuel additive (errr, except for that silly Acetone test I did a couple of years back to silence the Acetone zombies). Last summer when I did a head gasket job on one of our old cars I happened to take a shot up the intake runner toward the schnozzle of the fuel injector.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1219/751628505_ba11be6463_o.jpg

And a second shot from just above the injector down toward the fuel spray zone.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1162/751628513_acc93f83cb_o.jpg

Geez, they sure look pretty clean to me, especially considering that engine had lugged a minivan all over New England for nine years, accruing 143,625 miles (at the time of the photos), and never used any fuel additives.

Best Regards,
Shipo

wtd44

Many thanks for taking those photos. I've feared for years that I might be the only guy that does stuff like that! :sick:

shipo

Yeah, I'm not always playing with a full deck (at least according to some folks). My business partner always chastises me for changing my own oil (and doing other maintenance), "After all," he says, "that's what grease monkeys are for."

Best Regards,
Shipo

wtd44

I was referring to the taking of photos during maintenance procedures. I once documented the changing of the air filter on a Honda Valkyrie, for example! Yes, it's gratifying to be obsessive on this stuff...

euphonium

Using our 82 Town Car to tow our 17' boat to Lake Chelan, we bought gas in S Tacoma from an ARCO operator. We barely made it over Swauk Pass and chugged up the last hill into Wenatchee in First gear. Coasted into a Chevron station with an empty tank. While the engine was running rough, I poured a can of Techrolene into the tank. Within 30 seconds, the engine smoothed out and so we filled up with Chevron that contains Techrolene & proceeded to the lake & home again without any more problems.

I used STP in a 60 Corvair to quiet and free up the hydraulic valves.

I've used "Restore", but can't say I could tell any difference.

(How are you and the Bellevue Biker Cop getting along these days?)