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Post by kxj5906 on Nov 26, 2013 18:05:05 GMT -5
Is gas treatment a waste of money? It claims to clean carburators, improve mileage, and clean gunk in your fuel tank but is there substantial evidence to support this theory?
Looking for answers on this. Thoughts?
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Post by alleyoop on Nov 26, 2013 18:20:37 GMT -5
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Post by prodigit on Nov 26, 2013 18:57:14 GMT -5
Modern gasoline has cleaning agents in them,
Usually the regular gasoline has basic agents in them, the premium has more expensive agents in them that also burn better.
If you're using premium gasoline, it's pretty safe to say you don't need any gas treatments.
Cleaning agents work in 2 ways;
1- to reduce and clean gum deposit (gasoline residue)
2- to remove gummed up carbon deposits
If you use your vehicle regularly, the average time to use them is one cleaning every ~25k miles for every 1 liter engine.
a 500cc engine, might need a carb cleaning every 12k miles, a 250cc every 6k miles, a 125cc every 4k miles; a 50cc every ~2k miles, roughly speaking. That's to remove carbon deposits.
Aside from that, you don't really need any gas treatment at all when using the vehicle regularly.
If you don't use the scoot for several months, some gasoline can evaporate, leaving residue. That residue can clog the jets, and reduce performance; so you might need to put a shot in your scoot after not running it for a while, to remove gasoline gum deposits.
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Post by shalomdawg on Nov 26, 2013 20:40:44 GMT -5
howdy, if ya mean an ethanol stabilizer type additive, then I might say it is good insurance.
lotsa miles and smiles to ya
ken
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Post by kxj5906 on Nov 27, 2013 9:15:20 GMT -5
Thanks guys for the helpful explanations, I guess it wouldn't hurt to put some in, even though I only use top tier fuel anyways
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Post by rockynv on Dec 3, 2013 4:51:24 GMT -5
I always use top tier premium however it is still Ethanol and Ethanol is death to small engines if you don't regularly use a fuel system cleaner to remove the crud it leaves behind. Ethanol over time degrades the performance of vacuume fuel pumps and messes up carbuerators big time while on fuel injected bikes it clogs injectors and can swell the impellers of the injector pumps causing all sorts of problems.
A maintenance treatment with Berrymans or Lucas will help combat this and limit the gradual degredation in performance caused by Ethanol fuels.
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Post by RapidJim on Dec 3, 2013 10:11:07 GMT -5
I always use top tier premium however it is still Ethanol and Ethanol is death to small engines if you don't regularly use a fuel system cleaner to remove the crud it leaves behind. Ethanol over time degrades the performance of vacuume fuel pumps and messes up carbuerators big time while on fuel injected bikes it clogs injectors and can swell the impellers of the injector pumps causing all sorts of problems. A maintenance treatment with Berrymans or Lucas will help combat this and limit the gradual degredation in performance caused by Ethanol fuels.  I will add that we use seafoam as a preventive measure and have been using it for years. Esp when we store machine for the winter. I also use it in my personal machines. Jim |
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Post by jwalz1 on Dec 3, 2013 15:24:50 GMT -5
I don't use any gas treatment in my scooter's tank, don't know if that will be a problem or not.
My state has a 10% year round ethanol mandate, and on all my power equipment like snow blowers and mowers and such, the general rule to avoid ethanol crud is to drain the tank and run the engine dry until you can't get it to fire anymore when you are going to store it. With this method, my last snowblower went 20 years as a hand me down from my father and my mower is going on 11 years without issue and starts on the first pull. The ethanol can not gel if it is all burned and gone.
The scooter is only two years old, and gets mid grade gas.
The only additive I use periodically in my car is Techron concentrate every 10,000 which I read is an excellent fuel system cleaner included in Chevron Gas, but we don't have Chevron stations here. I suppose next time I do the car I will put a splash in the scooter perhaps.
I have stored my summer cars and a boat with a mercruiser inboard for about 20 years without any additive and without fuel issue, but they only sit for five months in between use at the longest and have noticed no issues with either.
On a side note, I have not owned the scooter long enough to see any drop off in performance due to fuel issues (it has 1300 miles on it) but I have never seen any evidence of better running or mileage out of using a fuel system cleaner on any car, even with high miles. What I HAVE seen better running and mileage from was using carb cleaner spray to clean out air flow meters, throttle body butterflies, sensor elements attached to the engine. and other related parts that get lots of carbon and gunk. Fuel treatments did not seem to do anything to these because the fuel was injected downstream of most of these parts.
But I think additives to reduce gum and varnish are not necessary if you use quality gas and use regularly. If you are going to store it, my advice is drain and run dry. But if you don't want that, the stabilizer might be good for you.
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Post by tarkus on Dec 4, 2013 5:21:26 GMT -5
I know this is simply a matter of semantics but...
In the discussions we always talk about the "crud" the ethanol leaves behind. This is a misnomer, ethanol contains alcohol which absorbs water, the alcohol also breaks down rubber parts and the crud that may already be in the fuel system. Both obviously bad for a motor.
But ethanol in and of itself does not leave crud behind.
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Post by wheelbender6 on Dec 4, 2013 20:56:20 GMT -5
I would use a fuel additive twice a year to get the condensed water out of the lines and tank. I wouldn't use gas treatment any more often than that.
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Post by skuttadawg on Dec 5, 2013 0:03:48 GMT -5
Ethanol can slowly dissolve cheap rubber fuel lines and they tiny particles will clog up the jets . I am a SeaFoam fan as it works great to clean and preventive maintenance too . If you can get gas without ethanol that would help out a lot . Here is a directory pure-gas.org/ |
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Post by rockynv on Dec 5, 2013 23:02:49 GMT -5
Just remember that you are not supposed to run a fuel injected bikes fuel system dry as it will damage the fuel pump a bit each time you do it and eventually the pump won't be able to develop enough pressure or flow to run the bike properly. The fuel also acts as a coolant to help extend the life of the pump in a fuel injected bike with the pump installed inside the tank to further promote this. Running the engine out of gas for storage is not best practice with fuel injection so that a cleaning agent to combat fuel gone corrosive and treatment with a Stabil or Startron type treatment to prevent Ethanol separation during storage is a very good habit to get in to. Some may get away with out however you see a large amount of posts here from folks who have problems that a regular treatment with a good fuel system cleaner would have prevented.
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..BAD TO THE BONE..
