Tell your snake oil stories

[Ranchero50]

Everyones love hate topic, what have you seen work (or not) work, Engine or tranny flushes, fuel additives, oil additives. Any good or fun Marvel Mystery Oil stories, how about STP products? How about any Ethanol fears or fixes?

I don't have any good ones but after watching the Stabil commercial on the Deadliest Catch for the last two months I did go out an buy a jug for my Seadoo powered jon boat.

Jamie

[hazelnut]

This is what ethanal dose to rubber gas lines, have a old car with the tank out and just put hose from fuel pump to the can so i could start it every now and then to keep the gas from messing up the carb. Took the line to car quest and asked if anyone else had problems with it, Yes, and was told that they make fuel line with a liner for ethanol fuel because it eats up rubber fuel lines. The marinas used to carrie non etonal fuel because so many outboard motors were breaking down on the water because it was eating at the fuel lines. Now the marinas around here only have fuel with ethonal in it, and i dont know of a place near me that sells gas without ethanol in it. About 18 months ago i was working at a nuclear power station and the safty topic that week was about gas with ethonal, basically said that the gas goes bad after a month and you needed to put something in it to help keep it longer like stabil.

[BRUTUS_T_HOG]

Everyones love hate topic, what have you seen work (or not) work, Engine or tranny flushes, fuel additives, oil additives. Any good or fun Marvel Mystery Oil stories, how about STP products? How about any Ethanol fears or fixes?

I don't have any good ones but after watching the Stabil commercial on the Deadliest Catch for the last two months I did go out an buy a jug for my Seadoo powered jon boat.

Jamie

i work in a shop that uses BG products, and we get results from them.

depending on whats going on with the engine an oil flush can take care of valve noise and oil consumption, we put 1 of 2 cleaners in.. follow the directions and then drain the oil, attach a flusher to the oil filter mount and pump fresh oil into the engine so it flows up to the top and washes all the old oil and cleaner out.

then refill the engine and add BG MOA which neutralizes the cleaner and any corrosive acids caused by combustion.

we have a similar system for transmission flushes, but we hook the machine in-line with the transmission cooler lines and replace the old fluid with clean new fluid and add another protectant that keeps the fluid from oxidizing. doing it this way ensures that all the fluid in the transmission is replaced rather than just draining 4-5QT from the pan.

doing this is usually just preventative maintenance, but we've had some cars that will shift funny and then fluid flush fixes it.


as for fuel injector/intake cleaners.. the ones at walmart and similar places are complete BS "we suck the cleaner through the intake and it cleans the fuel injectors and valves" just sucking cleaner into the intake will never even touch the fuel injectors..

once again.. at the shop we use a BG cleaner kit.. which includes 3 cans.. 1 for the gas tank, 1 for the intake, and 1 for the fuel injectors.. starting with the fuel injectors we disable the fuel pump and block the return line.. hook the machine up to the fuel rail and pressurize and then run the engine ON the cleaner for about 20-30 minutes.

then run it back on gas and inject the intake cleaner into the manifold through the throttle body.

this one ALWAYS gets good results, it always improves idle and if there is a spark knock problem not caused by anything else it completely eliminates the spark knock.

i've done the F. I. cleaning on my own truck and it took it from a rough unpleasant idle to a nice smooth idle completely free of misfires.

we can even do this with carburetors and run the cleaner through the carb and it works wonders

[BRUTUS_T_HOG]

im just sayin.. it gets satisfactory results. obviously it won't be as good and im not the one that SELLS the work, i just do the work

[BobbyFord]

Snake oil sucks. If it were beneficial to vehicle maintenance it would be recommended by the manufacturer. Period.

[R.Smith]

I have a friend who's a BG rep who used to be a certified Ford mechanic. When he was a mechanic he had no use for additives. Now he swears by BG although, I think if he sold Lucas he'd swear by that too. He's also a Chevy guy. He keeps bringing me BG stuff to try. MOA, 44K, some stuff in orange bottles that I think is fuel additive but, I can't say for sure and don't care enough to go look. Plus about 20 BG T shirts, BG hats, BG Salsa that tastes like Prego, several gigantoid BG coffee mugs, BG knives, BG fridge magnets, BG ink pens ect. He's a good mechanic and, back during my cam change I called him for some info. He decided to stop by unexpected and caught me with a bottle of Lucas sitting on the fenderwell. I told him it was because I'd used all the cans of MOA he gave me, so now I have even more. I'll likely use some in the next oil change. I see lots of local shops carrying it now and it does have zinc in it. Zinc...it's what plants crave.....

All in all though, I think most additives are hope in a can. People use them hoping to make up for abusing or ignoring their engines, just like people think an energy drink will make up for sitting on the couch too much. They basically both offer the same thing...increased performance, better milage and repairs worn out this or that...and all without having to work on your engine or go to the gym. If you look at the selection at the Pepzone you'll see that there's a can for just about every problem. Leaky radiator? Power steering weak? Burning oil? Transmission slipping? There's a can for every ailment, you don't need any tools and it rarely costs more than 10 bucks. Another problem with most additives is that, if you read the fine print, you have to use it 3 times a week for 10 years for it to do what it claims it will do.

The only additive I used consistantly is Marvel and I put it in the gas to lubricate the valves. It's been around forever and the military has used it since WW2 and a lot of people swear by it, although I wish they'd go back to the original can. They come in handy and I had about a dozen of them but, now I'm down to about 3.

[papabug71]

Didnt someone once say about STP, "pour it on the ground or in your engine. It does the same." I think it was a racecar driver or an engine builder that said that

Im not big on snake oils. I've never put any additives in my stuff & it all seems to run great, so I dont mess with it. I do run CD-2 lead substitute in my truck every other tank. It helps with pinging & valve clatter. It will run just fine without it, but it pings under hard acceleration even on 91 oct.

I do know if you add lead substitute to a vehicle with a catalytic converter, it will plug the cat up in record time. Dont ask me how I know

[NM5K]

Dunno.. You have snake oils, and you have products that work, but may not give the
desired results.. I'm wary of most all of them. But not all..
IE: I know that techron actually works fairly well at cleaning out carbon from
chambers and injectors. Better than many of the other brands.
Marvel Mystery Oil can be handy for certain things.. IE: if you add some to the oil,
after a while it can free sticky lifters. Ditto for Rislone.
But some practices I wouldn't do myself. For example, engine and tranny flushes..
They can often be the kiss of death/trouble to an aged engine or tranny.
They work too well, and you end up smoking more because many of the clearances
have widened due to the crud being removed. In some cases tranny flushes can
cause problems. In the case of my Toyota, I would never flush the tranny.
I'd only do drain and refills. I'd almost certainly never flush an engine. No real
need to. And say if you had lifters sticking, you'll be better off in the long run curing
it slowly, than doing the quick flush, which in a worst case can turn a decent engine
into a smoker. IE: just changing the oil more often will usually free a stuck lifter, but
it's kinda slow.. Adding rislone or MMO can speed things up a tad, but not cause the
problems that a flush can cause. And once the lifter was not sticking, I'd dump the
stuff and change to pure oil.
In the snake oil category, I start thinking of the teflon junk like Slick 50, etc..
I'd never put that mess in an engine. It's been proven to be bad news.
The gas stabilizers are definitely a good idea for any gas that is going to sit for a
while. Ethanol gas goes to varnish fast. I always use that stuff in my chain saws, etc.
Actually, the oil I use has it already in it. So that stuff is not a snake oil product.
Anyway, except for a few exceptions, I rarely use any of that other stuff.
But I might throw a bottle of techron in my Toyota gas tank maybe once a year or so..
I know that it actually works to cut that carbon that builds up. And I still use top tier
gas which is supposed to have that in it anyway. I consider a bottle of techron a
"booster shot" of sorts.
They can keep most of the rest of that stuff.

[Happy_Camper]

My favorite is:

http://www.americarx.com/Products/4445.html

Not sure how it would work in a car, but everytime my ex-girlfriend had an "ailment", one look at me with a spoon and this bottle, and she'd feel great without even opening it.
I gave her the bottle as a going away present. She said something about using it as a supository... I'm not sure what she ment

Chinese Water Snake... mmmm, mmmm, good!

[bluemoose]

I had a leaking steering rack. I bought some of the fliud with leak stop as a last ditch effort to get a few more miles out of it. It all but stopped the leak for close to 10,000 miles. Of course it wasn't a permanent fix, but for the cost it was well worth it. I never dreamed it would work, let alone get me the miles it did. Course I don't think I would have tried it if my car was fairly new. You never can tell what else these type of products are going to affect down the road.

Moose

[RTG_RACING]

I use some stuff in my diesel. It makes up for the ultra low sulfer they sell now. It does help with warm starts and stuff. I like MMO for cleaning a diry engine. When I bout my 8n it was nasty. I ran some mmo in the gas and oil and it cleaned the valves and alot of nasty stuff out of the block.

[Oren09]

I and other family member have used the various fuel additives in the past- like STP fuel injector cleaner or something of the like.
I don't mess with those anymore.
About all I do now is run some water or Seafoam through the throttle body/carb/intake vacuum hose. Seafoam in the oil and gas tank.

Do you think that stuff actually works? I've never gotten the big cloud of smoke from Seafoam. Maybe my engines have been too clean...

[NM5K]

As far as injector and combustion chamber/valve seat carbon, I like
Techron. The stuff works. But I don't use it regularly. Only on a known
carboned up engine, or maybe once a year or so as a booster shot to
make sure things are fairly clean. Most of the gas I buy has Techron, or
whatever crud buster, but you never really know if it's strong enough to
really keep things clean. I imagine the strength varies being as it's an
additive that they throw in with the bulk gas.
As far as blasting out carbs in older engines, I always used transmission
fluid poured down the carb while running. I do that about every tune up,
or oil change.

[Ranchero50]

I just sold my Sunbird boat last weekend. Ended up putting a dose of this in to clear up the blue smoke that followed it everywhere:

http://www.bardahl.com/mods/gallery/gal ... =&shownew=

Only real downsize was the oil pressure is about 80psi when cold vs. 60 with straight 10w30. The stuff is thick, but worked really well.

Jamie

[DuckRyder]

As far as STP goes, not really a snake oil story, but something someone showed me years ago. Take a large flat blade screwdriver and hold it upside down by pinching the blade between your thumb and fore finger then dip it in standard oil and do the same thing, and finally in the STP.

I could hold it quite easily until the STP then it would just shoot out onto the floor, not that it really proves anything, but it might be a fun party trick.

You know those ads in the car rags and on Spike for "Mothers All Wheel and Tire Cleaner" the ones with the picture of the Mazdaspeed 3? That stuff Rocks, I mean it is AWESOME tire and wheel cleaner...!