Restoring lost engine power

ainarssems · #1 13th March 2015, 09:36 AM

Stumbled upon this video on Youtube from Fifth Gear. If you use Shell VPower with cleaning additives already in fuel then I guess effect of Redex will be lesser if any but interesting video nonetheless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03nL8Z0dRkI

Conquistador · #2 13th March 2015, 09:45 AM

I would highly recommend Terraclean rather than these fuel additives every now and again, although high-RON petrol all the time is certainly beneficial. £100-£120 for a big engine but produces spectacular noticeable results including a boost of a couple of MPG, even more on smaller engines. Going to get it done in the next couple of weeks as well as new cats on my S8 so should be running beautifully after.

It cleans the injectors up and de-carbonises the engine and kicks 10 years of crap out through the exhaust too!

kele · #3 13th March 2015, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Conquistador

I would highly recommend Terraclean rather than these fuel additives every now and again, although high-RON petrol all the time is certainly beneficial. £100-£120 for a big engine but produces spectacular noticeable results including a boost of a couple of MPG, even more on smaller engines. Going to get it done in the next couple of weeks as well as new cats on my S8 so should be running beautifully after.

It cleans the injectors up and de-carbonises the engine and kicks 10 years of crap out through the exhaust too!

I was contemplating this on mine ( after two injectors failed on me last summer ). I have acted on your recommendation and booked it in for next week. £126 I was quoted but at least it is relatively close by....

Phil303 · #4 13th March 2015, 12:41 PM

I was considering getting the injectors cleaned by hand, but this sounds promising. Even more so as a quick search shows there's a Terraclean agent quite literally 1 minute away from the office!

I'm going to investigate further...

Goran · #5 13th March 2015, 06:39 PM

Interesting result from that Redex stuff.
I hope I don't jinx myself, when I had my S8 dynoed at MRC last year with 4 year old plugs, old HT leads, and old fuel filter, it made 355hp, which is pretty much spot on the book value. I felt very happy with that result. Maybe it made even more when it was new, that's a nice thought

Phil303 · #6 16th March 2015, 06:25 PM

I been scouring an interweb and it would appear that the opinions towards this type of engine cleaning range from 'fantastic - for a month' to utter contempt at selling snake oil to gullible motorists.

An Audi user on another forum had it done to his S4 and was impressed by the slight increase in efficiency and smoothness, but a month later he posted that the MPG figures were back to what they were before the clean.

Others have said that carbon is pretty hard to shift at the best of times and they can't quite understand how this fuel mixture manages to shift deposits where manual cleaning and chemicals fail. Another factor which I had thought of was that the engine is now used to running with tolerances that take into account any build-up. Clean that away and your exposing the engine to uncoated surfaces that just *may* have been protected by a slight build up of carbon.

A guy with a Jag had 2 injectors fail after the clean and surmised that it was the carbon build-up that was actually holding the things together and keeping them working.

Also someone questioned the point at which the mixture is added and how much of the engine it actually reaches before it's vaporised and burnt off; and also does the muck now flowing through the exhaust system do any damage?

A phrase which was came up time and again on numerous forums was the best clean out method would be to give your car an Italian tune-up. You can guess what that involves.

All things considered I think I'll save my money for something important like petrol.

goldsax · #7 16th March 2015, 08:46 PM

i have used terraclean for my Range rover diesel. you can feel a very mild improvement.
i have found putting 98+ RON e.g. Nitro/shell offering more noticeable improvement in my petrol engined cars.

Phil303 · #8 16th March 2015, 09:23 PM

The biggest differences were more noticeable on diesel engines.

For a car that runs perfectly well and is always filled with V-Power, I think I'm going to leave well alone.

daviesbike · #9 17th March 2015, 06:41 PM

I Had one of my 4.2s cleaned as well as a full engine flush and clean prior to an oil change and it started rattling a week later. striped the engine down to find that all the burnt oil that was inside the casing had come away during the flush and resulted in exactly that! the tolerance must have been out due to natural engine wear and the carbon had kept it all quiet and smooth.. removing the carbon resulted in me having a new engine. although the fuel system was clean as a whistle when the heads came off, i recommend cataclean and injector cleaner. but don't flush your engine with engine flush, simply change the oil more often, i do mine every 8,000 miles may sound daft but as soon as my oil goes from a golden honey color to any shade of black its out and fresh in and new filter

tc4332 · #10 17th March 2015, 07:48 PM

I have a vehicle mechanic with his own business. He adopted us as pseudo parents when he married a friend of my wife.
He and his work colleague have been pushing Terraclean for a couple of years and offered to do our old Nissan Maxima QX for free but being wary I declined.
I have heard a few accolades, but many more negatives.
Is it the bees knees or snake oil? Let's wait a year or three and see if anyone else has to pay for repairs due to something not really proven.