Here's a question I hope someone here can answer for me--When I had my Pontiac I ran a bottle of fuel system/fuel injector cleaner through my gas ever 5-10K miles. I have been told that some additives (I think they were referring to octane boost) would coat your spark plugs to the point they could not be cleaned & would need to be replaced. Does anyone here have any advice--do's/don't as far as running cleaners through the gas tank--will it screw anything up as long as I use every 5-10K miles or so?

Same question with engine cleaners where you pour this stuff in & then idle the motor a few minutes & drain the oil. Advice/suggestions? Thanks! Rob

 

A lube shop put full throttle fuel system cleaner in my car, it dropped my octane level down to detonation levels. On a NA car this is fine, but my car was forced induction and it had disastrous results.

I would research any additive before using it.

 

I would stay away from any fuel system cleaners except Techron. Ford recommends it for problems with the fuel sensors and such, and it is proven safe for many years.

As for engine cleaners, no reason to use those as long as you change the oil regularly (5K miles) and use a good oil. You don't need to use Mobil1 or anything, the cheapo Motorcraft Semi-Syn is a great oil and a great price (~$10 for 5qt jug at wally world). If you do that, you won't get anything in your engine to worry about cleaning. At least not for the first 200,000 miles or so.

That all said, if you DO for some reason just have to clean out your engine, I would recommend AutoRX... www.auto-rx.com In my opinion, the safest and most effective product out there.

 

The car is completely stock--no engine mods if that makes any difference. Sorry I didn't make that clear in the original post. Thanks for any advice!

 

The last time I did an engine oil flush was on a 40 year old engine that had been sitting for about a year. It only had 60k original miles, but being 40 years old in the same car it had a lot of gunk stuck to it. The oil came out black as night after the oil flush.

Why are you thinking you need to do an engine oil flush on a brand new engine, let alone a fuel system cleaner?

 

Just thought it's a good idea to keep the fuel system clean--this car's my baby & I want to keep her in as good a shape as I can. I guess the oil flush is maybe going a little overboard but I don't know that much about engines and considered it cheap insurance. I guess maybe with improved oils & a good mechanic it just isn't necessary. Thanks for the advice, thats what I love about the site--there's always somebody that has good advice when you need it