Not the personal kind, the automotive kind.
From what I can tell, they're pretty much the same. Gumout, STP, Prestone, etc. seem to have about the same ingredients.
My question:
Is there a good-better-best?
I only use them once in a while, not "every fillup" or "every 3000 miles" like they print on the bottle.
Your expert opinion?

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Happiness is a warm 686

I'd say they're quite good....at making your wallet lighter.

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NRA Endowment Member

Chevron make a fuel additive called Techron-it comes in a black, odd shaped bottle so you can pour it in the tank. I had an old Buick with a failing fuel pump and it DID make a difference in the way it ran. You can get it at Advance Auto Parts and the smaller bottle at Wal Mart.

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jj

Go to www.bobistheoilguy.com. There is a lot of good information on oil and a section on additives too. One in particular is Fuel Power. It can be researced on BITOG as can the other additives.

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otis

In my personal experience over the years, I have found that you simply cannot pour good maintenance in your gas tank or crank case from a bottle or can. I've got 203,XXX miles on my 2000 Plymouth Voyager and it has never had a drop of fuel or oil additive poured in it. Still running strong on the original factory installed fuel injectors, sensors, fuel pump, etc. Likewise with my 1984 Blazer with 180,XXX miles and my 1999 Ford E150 work van with 85,XXX miles on it. All of them are subject to regular oil changes as well as regular scheduled maintenance that I perform myself rather than trusting some "mechanic" to do it right.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't use a fuel additive ever. In fact, I generally run a can of SeaFoam through my boat each spring when I take it out of winter storage, which seems to keep it running clean. But fuel and oil additives are not a regular part of my automotive maintenance plan. Seems that money can be better spent on other things, IMO.

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NRA Pistol,PPITH,PPOTH&TASER

On some cars, putting the wrong fuel additive in the tank can destroy the oxygen sensor. I changed the O2 sensor on a friend's car 3 times before they fessed up to putting an expensive additive in the tank.

Some fuel additives are mostly alcohol to help the water contaminant mix, but if your gas already has alcohol in it, that is a total waste of $$.

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Science plus Art

My fatherwas an engineer. Nothing special he was a Civil Engineer but one of the younger brothers became a Chemical Engineer and was working for Morton Thoakol when the rocket fuel plant in Henderson, NV blew up.

His take: The addative industry is based on the notion that there are products out there that the auto makers and the oil companies KNOW are a panacea and would work wonders on your vehicle, except they are in a comsperecy and are withholding those miraacle products from you
in order that you burn more fuel, in the case of the oil companies or that your engine wears out faster, in the case of the auto industry.

Now that I'm getting old, coming up on 60 real fast all I can say is I remember well when a family car or truck back in the 50s or 60s that ran well and routinely right up to 200,000 miles was as rare as hens teeth.

The the developement of fuel injection, computers, air/fuel metering etc the modern car is much more reliable and trouble free than cars were in the past and they already get significant better fuel econemy than even my moms 1968 Dart did with the 225 slant six.

There is no cadnium ring to put around your air filter that excites the ions and increases you fuel economy to 100 mpg. There is no miracle addative to instantly adds 40 mpg.

I had a buddy many years ago that knew little to nothing about cars and engines in particular. He owned a series of 3/4 and 1 ton Dodges to pull this huge boat he had. Problem was he's on;y buy it with a 318 in it every time and everytime he'd try and to more work and get better fuel econemy than was possible.

My favorite was the gallon milk jug full of distilled water that was hooked to the port in the carb that drew water vapor into the air/fuel mixture ,thus making it burn at a lower temperature anf thus causing less wear and tear on the motor.!?!?

I akked just how that was possable and didn't it serve to reduce to energy available in the fuel thus decreasing power rather than the inverse? Nope, guy at work told him about it and he had a zillion miles on his Dodge and got 80 mpg.

Then one night the tow truck showed up at the house with his truck. Dead, dead, dead. If you try and pull the old Horshoe Bend Hill pulling a huge boat with a 318 at 175 HP BEFORE you water the fuel it sort of implodes.

I pulled it apart, showed him the bent valves, and the bent rods and the holed pistons and.....
He assured me it couldn't have been the Wonder H2O system. Then he balked at putting a 360 with a 4 barrel back in the truck with a cam to actually produce horses where he needed them in the rpm range. It was too exspensive. This from the guy that was on his third 318. I refused to re-build or install another 318. The tow truck came and towed it away. To this day I have no idea who or if the trck got a 318 or a 360. Apparently we weren't REALLY frtiends as we haven't spoken since then and that was almost 30 years ago.

You can add STP and some of the other "OIL" treatments" according to the Chemical Engineer in the family all any of them do is raise the viscocity of you oil by 10 points per bottle. So if you have some miles and are getting some blow by with 10-30 and you add STP or whatever, you are now running 40 weight and it might actually not blow by as badly. As for fuel econemy, can't happen and it defies all physics laws.

THere are some addatives that do work. Those designed with a speciic chemical to do a specific thing.

Freeze or gel the diesel in your tank and there is one that "If you are lucking" will disolve the parfine in the system and put it into suspension so it can burn. It also smokes like the USS Idqho laying down a smoke screen.

FUeled in Texas a few years back and headed home on I20 without thinking about it. At the top of the monutains in New Mexico my sone reported we had a heck of a head wind as we could only go 50mph in 5th gear. I looked at the overhed console and saw 23 degrees F and instantly thought oh Shucks or something like that. Stopped at the first truck stp and bought 4 gallons of fuel addative. By the time we got home we had managed to melt most of the parfine and it only required a fuel filter change and one injector. Whew.

There are other specific formulated for injectors etc that actually work if the problem isn't too bad. NOthing in a bottle will fix or cure a real problem or make your engine new or add 50 mpg.

There isn't any free lunch and the industry is NOT conspiring against you. On the other hand there are things that you can do for some of your hard earned cash that will help specific issues that the industry, car or oil don't do because they don't apply to every car and they aren't worth the added $20 per vehicle when costed across the entire fleet. TRust me, them boys that design and price this tuff use a real sharp pencil.

There are a few crashed military jets around this area. The Air Force has salvaged all they want. Each time I pass one I stp andspend an hour or so retrieving nuts and bolts off the engines etc. If the best we can buy is a grade 8 I have no idea what these wonderful stainless steel, with captured nuts and washers etc are graded at. I did ask a machinist once what they would cost for him to make . He looked at them and measured them and then took a guess of the materials used and said he thought he might be able to make them for $100 each!!! I suspect that in the official Air Force world the cost even more per unit. All I know is they work great on Dodge trucks and tractors. I also know that if Dodge actually used them to put their trucks together the MSRP would be $100,000 or so.

So maybe the addatives do something besides lighten ypour wallet , hence to total vehicle weight, thus increasing fuel economey and performance, but I wouldn't bet more than the price of the bottle of "stuff" on it.

I did appreciate the old boy I bought the 2003 Ram 3500 from with the Cummins that only used synthetic and changed it every 2500 miles religiously. Bubba's question/statement was "Good lord it couldn't have even been dirty at 2500 miles".

RTW

RWT

Wick, what's your take on Slick 50?

Slick 50 = Snake Oil

Charlie: I'll ask bubba. What I can tell you is the chemical engineer in the family hasn't said to go out and buy some and treat the motor with it.

That being said my question would be, it costs X what is the increase, if any in milage and what it the increase in engine life if any, and what is the trade off.

I guess I'm just not a conspearacy theorist and find it hard to think that if REALLY worked it wouldn't be on the fringes of the industry and marketed through info-mercials.

My 2 cents.

I think that driving in a regular manner without sudden stops and jackrabbit starts and fast excelleration etc. wouldn't do more for longevity and fuel econemy than all the "miracles" in the world.

I could be wrong.

Ross

I would second that. People who go flying around me only to slam on their brakes to make what amounts to a panic stop at a red light are particularly puzzling. Couldn't they see that it was red? Of course when they take off, it's as if the devil himself is after them.

I do use fuel injector cleaner. A mechanic once recommended that I put it in once a month.

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You're shy a few manners.

Never use gas additives,dry gas once in a while.But always put STP in my oil.Have over 200,000 miles on my engines.Maybe it does something?

I usually add a bottle of Tectron to the gas tank two tankfuls before I change oil. I'm convinced it does a pretty good job of removing carbon deposits and build up in the combustion area. Where do these deposits go? Out the exhaust and some are picked up in the oil.

For an example. I had a BMW R1100 motorcycle that started detonating when hot and under load, but nor really lugging. It turns out this engine is prone to carbon build up which can increase the compression. But worse it can create glowing hot spots in the combustion area which, under certain conditions, will cause pre-ignition. I added a bottle of Tectron to two consecutive tankfuls and the bike was back to running like it should. Then I changed the oil which had been it for only 2,000 miles and it came out looking really dark, almost black. Much worse looking than after a typical 3,000-5,000 change.

Wickahoney is dead on and covered most of the bases well. About the only additive I can think of that might do some good is "Dry Gas" or one of it's many equivalents, that are supposed to help when you get a small slug of water in your gas tank. Gasoline and water will not mix, but (supposedly)water, alcohol, and gasoline will mix and burn well enough to keep the water from stalling your engine. I've used it a few times over the past 50 years and it seems to work in auto gas tanks. Some claim it will work in home heating oil tanks, but without some agitation to mix it, I doubt it would be very effective.

+1 If the car manufacturer doesn't recommend using something, I don't use it. They build and warranty the engine, and I figure if it needed something additional they would say so.

What ever happened to "Motor Honey"? When I was a kid working at a gas station, people would come in and get a dollars worth of gas, and a bottle of Motor Honey in the engine.

Wow. I was glad to see the disclaimer about it not being the personal kind of gas! More to the point, I survived giving one of my daughters-in-law a present.... a box of Beano and another of GasX! She took it well, really. She correctly assumed it was for her husband and her mother! Both of which laughed, too. Then refused to take it because they both enjoy the venting process. DIL doesn't.

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Dick Burg

If I'm not sadly mistaken, some of the newer Ford owner's manuals state to use Chevron Techron as an approved additive. I'd have to look at my 2005 and 2006 Mustang owner's manual to be sure.

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MARK

OH, the thread subject. I forgot.

A division of the company I work for sells consumer products. We get returns. We don't reship any that already have store prices stuck on them. If possible, we throw them in the dumpster. But HazMat doesn't go there. Some we use in our own fleet. But some isn't suitable for diesels. I was given a bunch of the octane boost, some Mickey Thompson, some STP, some other brands.

I've got a really good test vehicle to use them in. If I run regular gas in my Jeep, the drive home from work results in about 12 to 14 downshifts on a 10 mile interstate commute. Any even minor uphill makes the wimpy motor drop out of OD. When I run premium fuel, it never happens on that drive. Simply the difference in octane allows the thing to motor along. With octane boost, and I don't see much difference between them, mid range fuel acts the same as premium.

My conclusion is simple. If I'm given a few bottles of it, I buy cheaper gas and dump in a bottle or two. Then I always keep a plastic bottle in the vehicle. On occasions I get fuel and pay for premium but the stuff isn't any good. Then I dump a container into the tank and it almost always clears up the problem. And I mark that filling station as one to avoid.

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Dick Burg

only thing I ever add is a bit of SeaFoam to clean out the carbs and stuff, also run it into the intake(thru vac line)

another use for it is to piss off your neigbors

Actually it could be argued that DryGas is not necessary anymore. Most gas now consists of 10% (or more) alcohol as it is.

I have a 2002 Dodge Ram 1500 quadcab that has the 360 engine.I usually get a little over 12 mpg average since the truck was new.I started using LUCAS fuel treatment and my mpg improved to 13.5 mpg without changing anything else.Try it and see if you don't see an improvement in your mpg.

I agree with most stated so far, concerning the value and effectivenesss of most of the so called fuel system chemicals. I also own my third Dodge with the Cummins Diesel. Due to the recent Federal requirement to lower the sulpher content from diesel fuel, I now add a quart of ashless 2 stroke oil per tank of 34 or so gallons of fuel. This amounts to about an ounce per gallon, and can tell a defference in perormance, even a very slight increase in mileage. My reasoning is, the now decreased sulpher was somewhat of a lubricant for both the injector pump and the injectors themselves. The engine does seem to idle smoother after running this lubricant with my fuel. It is not expensive, as Wally World sells a gallon for about $8.50, which provided me treatment for 140 or so gallons. I used to use a quart of transmission fluid, but am now afraid to do so, due to the red color it turns the fuel.
It used to serve me well when I owned an 18 wheeler, but that was before they started to dye farm fuel red. I still every fall toss about a pint in my wifes car, as it can't hurt anything, and may even help it as well.

4406V: I guess my question would be , at what price?

You have increased you milage by about 10%. Given it's so crummy to start with predicated on a 32 gallon gas tank you now get 40 miles further down the road. At what cost?If the stuff cost $6 - $8 a bottle you could have bough the same increase for the same money buy simpy spending the $6 and tax on gasoline.

I do use some addatives and think they work. I use fuel stabilizer in the winter because ALL of my rigs a diesels with the Cummins 360.

Because I ocassionally tow HEAVY loads, between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds I add Power Punch in the differentials. It does actually work to reduce the wear and scuffing on the ring and pinion. I on occassion run a bottle of injector cleaner through each truck.

If I go to Boise and drive around town my 3/4 and 1 ton Dodges get 15 to 17 MPG in city driving. All except one are 4x4s and several a duallys. The difference in milage is a little to do with who is driving and even more whether it is an automatic transmission or has a 5 speed or 6 speed. Out on the highway, with the cruise control set and chugging along at 1800 rpm and 70 miles an hour I get between 21 to 23 mpg.

Thats about it.

I'd be dumping that Dodge that gets 12-13mpg. I get that pulling a goose neck trailer that loaded goes across the scale at 28,000 pounds!!!! Hinest, it really is why we don't own a single gas engine truck on the place other than an old 1975 short box 1/2 ton.

I have debated the purchase of a short box, 2 wheel drive with a 5 speed and a V6, but haven't done it yet and may not in this economy.

Ross W Thomas
Great Basin Ranch
Owyhee County, ID

Oh I do add octane booster to the twp remaining muscle cars. With compression ratios of 12.5:1 and 13:1 even high octane pump gas won't prevent detination, hence the octane booter

The LUCAS fuel treatment I'm using is $8 a quart and I get 6 treatments out of it so it's about $1.40 to 20 gallons of gas.I understand 12 mpg sucks but my truck is paid for so I don't have to make a payment and fill the tank too.
Yeah I spend more on additives in my 70 440 six pack Challenger but with 500 horsepower I don't really care about miles per gallon I get plenty of smiles per gallon especially at wide open throttle!!!

I will second the recommendation for Sea Foam. It will keep the injectors clean. I use it religiously in my Mercury Optimax outboard motor and occasionally in my Triton V-10 and Chevy 5.3. Good stuff.

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Fats

My experience on gas additives is they are about as effective as moth balls.

But for diesels, especially the old mechanical injected motors, 1 qt of 2 stroke oil per tank of ULSD fuel keeps the injector pump out of the shop. Eliminates smoke and engine is a touch quieter at idle as well.

There are precious few of them that do anything useful, besides cause an increase in mileage by lightening the drivers wallet! There are some that are "legit" B/G is one. The induction systems that have come into service, have their own set of troubles. Which, no doubt, will be aggravated by congress now, just as they were in the 1970's. Deposits in critical air bleed ports now account for a large proportion of the troubles experienced. And the overwhelming majority of them appear to continue to be caused by mandating fuel mixtures the components were never designed to function with. It's reassuring in a sick and twisted kind of way? It allows me to "get the joke" even though not having been involved with the trade for twenty five years now. It's almost like the sun coming up in the east. Every generation has to go completely friggin' nuts over cars/pollution/fuels. Only a decade later to wonder what madness overtook them and accelerating as rapidly as possible towards what "works".

Sea Foam or Chevron Techron. Once or twice a year for me. Or if I get a tank of bad gas. The Chevron is the only one I can say made a differance. But that really only means my injectors were dirty. If you run quality gas and your engine is properly tuned you should not be able to tell a differance. I am speaking about newer fuel injected vehicles.

A courios question. If you improve the fuel milage on a vehicle above what it gets brand new and running at its best. Would you not be changing the air fuel ratio. Running lean in other words. Can this cause problems and shorten engine life. Too much fuel Rich mixture is bad as well. I am no mechanic.

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SC Army National Guard

My vehicles generally don't get their best fuel economy when they're brand new. Most of mine show improvements as I drive them, usually getting better mileage by 10,000 to 15,000 miles. A few have actually improved after that. My 2003 Jeep is getting its best mileage now at about 43,000.

Maybe I've altered its breakin period by running synthetic from the first oil change. Doesn't matter, we track every gallon and the miles indicated on the odometer. It closely parallels the GPS indicated miles, too.

As for running different grades of fuel, I've experimented. You can't tell squat from one or two tank loads, but when you've run about 10 of them, you get a good indication. Remember, different pumps shut off at different pressures. You need to top them off a little to be sure you're full. When you've done that a few time, you can be pretty sure you're getting good numbers. Also, driving conditions can make a huge difference. Its why you run multiple fill-ups to even out those differences.

If premium costs less than 10% more, and you get more than 10% better fuel economy, its a bargain. Tire pressure can make that much difference alone, so do your comparisons with the same pressures, cold. Only change one variable at a time.

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Dick Burg

BG44k a couple times a year keeps injectors clean. Wait til tank is near empty, add BG44k and fill up. Drive til near empty again. It works.

Slick 50 contains teflon which is made be Dow Chemicals (?). Dow says not to use teflon in an internal combustion engine.

For the most part, modern engine oils are well engineered and contain all the additives you need. The one product that I do hold in regard is Auto-Rx. Auto-Rx is designed to slowly dissolve sludge that may build up in an engine. Tests by Terry Dyson at Dyson Analysis confirm that Auto-Rx does perform as stated.

If you burn discount gasoline, chances are that there are few if any additives. One should use name brand gasoline or an additive for cleaning the fuel system on occassion.

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otis

I use Chevron Techron. I don't know if it helps, but it doesn't seem to hurt. I've used slick 50 in a couple of my vehicles. I guess I just drank the Kool-Aid in the ads. I will say, one thing did make a noticeable difference with a hard shifting automatic transmission in my '94 Ford F-150. I put in Slick 50 for transmissions. I had been noticing the transmission having trouble shifting. The Slick 50 product made the transmission shift smoothly again. It seemed to permanently correct the problem, at least for a few years until I sold it.