When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I have been using the GM specified fuel additive but after looking at both SDS sheets it looks like it is the same as Techron, but more expensive. Will use Techron on the Grand Sport. Both say they handle the reason I use it at least every oil change, possible sulfur buildup on fuel level sensors.
A poster had a dealer charge $100 to put in two containers of the GM product into the fuel tank, which solved his level reading problems. Some others have had their sensors replaced. That requires dropping the rear part of the drivetrain!
Cheap insurance. Helps clean the injectors as well.
I don't know if there are different grades of this stuff, but the box of six 16oz. bottles cost me $19.99 at Costco. Is this a less potent product or is is really the same stuff at half the price as the Autozone sale?
I have been using the GM specified fuel additive but after looking at both SDS sheets it looks like it is the same as Techron, but more expensive. Will use Techron on the Grand Sport. Both say they handle the reason I use it at least every oil change, possible sulfur buildup on fuel level sensors.
A poster had a dealer charge $100 to put in two containers of the GM product into the fuel tank, which solved his level reading problems. Some others have had their sensors replaced. That requires dropping the rear part of the drivetrain!
Cheap insurance. Helps clean the injectors as well.
Yep, since GM doesn't produce such products, they most likely purchase Techron and have it packaged in a GM bottle.
I really don't think it's necessary at all if you're always using Top Tier gas and I believe forum member LDB (our resident fuel/oil expert) might have even mentioned on here a few times that it's slightly harmful to have too much detergents in your fuel.
I also disagree with the notion that $5 every 4000 miles is not a big deal. After 100,000 miles of driving, that's $125, that's a couple of steak dinners right there
Pat, i know where u can get 2.5l bottle of wine for $9.
There’s no way to talk die hard additive fans out of using additives, so I won’t attempt to do that. But for anyone who is “on the fence”, actual engine testing data says you don’t need them. Assuming that you use top tier gas regularly, you will be a teeny tiny, little bit WORSE off using extra Techron (or any other additive) than just using the top tier by itself. Our testing over many years (I’m retired from a major oil company) clearly and repeatedly showed that it was entirely possible to use too much detergent. That’s because the detergent itself leaves a tiny bit of residue. So if the engine is clean (which it will be with top tier), then extra detergent won’t make it any cleaner, but it will make it a teeny tiny bit dirtier by the amount of detergent residue left behind. It would be sort of like using an ultra heavy load of detergent in your washing machine. If you did that regularly, it wouldn’t rinse out very well, and eventually, you’d have a collection of soap scum in your clothes. In the case of gas additives, the point of the above message is not to say you will hurt your engine by using them. The teeny bit of residue left by extra additives isn’t enough to hurt anything. The point is, if added on top of gas that already has top tier additives, it isn’t going to help either, so you are wasting money.
There are only two situations where you might gain some benefit from extra additives. One is if you have a seriously dirty engine from tens of thousands of miles on cheapo gas. Even there, the benefit isn’t huge. Just plain old top tier will do as much in a few dozen tankfulls as extra additives would in a tank or two. Neither approach will get the engine back to clean as new, but either approach will get it well over half way back. That one I know from looking at actual test data. I cannot vouch for this next situation from any testing I have personally seen, but several on the forum have reported that Techron sometimes corrects gas gauge problems in earlier generations of Vettes. I have no idea what percentage of the time it works, but fuel sender replacement is several hundred bucks, so if you gas gauge fails in an earlier generation Vette, why not try it. Even if it only works 1 time in 100 (and forum scuttlebutt says it works more often than that) for a few bucks to have a chance of saving several hundred bucks, odds say you should try it. As far as I know, there is no comparative data even on the forum about whether using extra Techron every now and then would reduce odds of having a gauge problem in the first place. Somebody might say “I’ve used top tier plus extra cans of Techron and never had a gas gauge problem”, but tons of people haven’t used extra added Techron and never had a gas gauge problem. So to know if it was effective as a preventive measure, you’d have to do a controlled, statistical study, and to my knowledge, nobody has.
I have yet to put additives of any kind in the Corvette or the newer Silverado. I bought the Techron for an older outboard motor that had some water go thru the fuel system. I used the stuff made to clean up the gas and used the Techron to clean the injectors. I guess it worked.
I might try it in the truck, which does have a fuel level issue right now, but will wait until after the warranty service appointment tomorrow.
BTW, I was in the local Costco a little bit ago and they still have the 6/16 box for twenty bucks.
I don't know if there are different grades of this stuff, but the box of six 16oz. bottles cost me $19.99 at Costco. Is this a less potent product or is is really the same stuff at half the price as the Autozone sale?
Well, one is a "System" cleaner and this one is a "Fuel Injector" cleaner. By the wording, I'd guess that one might be both formulated slightly differently to affect more parts of the "system" and possibly stronger, too. That's a guess; I've not written/called Chevron to ask them the difference between the two products.
I don't know if there are different grades of this stuff, but the box of six 16oz. bottles cost me $19.99 at Costco. Is this a less potent product or is is really the same stuff at half the price as the Autozone sale?
The Techron at Autozone is different......Maybe more potent. It is called "Complete Fuel System Cleaner. Recommended for fuel gauge problems and a great deal. Plus they are 20 oz.
Well, one is a "System" cleaner and this one is a "Fuel Injector" cleaner. By the wording, I'd guess that one might be both formulated slightly differently to affect more parts of the "system" and possibly stronger, too. That's a guess; I've not written/called Chevron to ask them the difference between the two products.
Originally Posted by ztheusa
The Techron at Autozone is different......Maybe more potent. It is called "Complete Fuel System Cleaner. Recommended for fuel gauge problems and a great deal. Plus they are 20 oz.[/img]
Techron is just a brand name like Tide, it is not a specific compound. Chevron has done a wonderful job of marketing Techron, sticking with that name through thick and thin, to the point that it is now clearly the best known additive name in the gasoline world. But it’s a pretty safe bet that today’s Techron is considerably different (and better) than the Techron of 30 years ago, just like today’s Tide is better than the Tide of 30 years ago. Technology moves forward, and they simply put new developments under the old name. They now even split it up into different functions like fuel injector versus “system”. While I don’t specifically know their formulations, different classes of compounds are known to be more effective in various areas (injectors, valves, plugs, piston crowns, combustion chambers, and in the old days, carburetors, etc). The reason is that temperatures, pressures, mix of oxygen versus combustion products, etc, are different in the different areas of the engine, so it makes sense that each area would have its own most effective class of compound. So a typical additive package is a blend of various compounds such that each area that the package is trying to address has a compound that is good at attacking that area. Since the packages used in top tier gas must clean all areas, they would likely contain a wider variety of active ingredients than an aftermarket additive tailored for one specific area. Beyond that, when you get into the nitty gritty of exact compounds and concentrations, you’re on very thin ice talking about specifics. But having said that, I’ll continue to stick with my comments in post #27, namely, that with the exceptions noted in that post, there’s no need for anything beyond top tier. While top tier packages from various companies have various exact blends of compounds, they all must (and do) pass the same very stringent tests for engine cleanliness.
I agree w/ LDB, and essentially said the same thing above. With the advent of Top Tier fuels, there's probably little or no benefit. However I still, perhaps irrationally, occasionally throw in a bottle of Techron out of force of habit. It's a habit I acquired from my first new BMW 3-series in 1986, when BMW said you had to do it.
I'm getting less and less religious about it, and only run Shell 93.
I'm with Foosh, and others in this thread. I've not run additives, and only use Chevron 92 in my car and the wife's Audi. Run it in the F-150 too but only the 87 proof stuff. I've always figured that using the Top Tier stuff was enough and the additive wasn't necessary. I'll say this though, almost divorced the wife when I found out she was filling up with whatever was cheapest whenever I wasn't around to take her car to the station.
Techron is just a brand name like Tide, it is not a specific compound. Chevron has done a wonderful job of marketing Techron, sticking with that name through thick and thin, to the point that it is now clearly the best known additive name in the gasoline world. ....While I don’t specifically know their formulations, different classes of compounds are known to be more effective in various areas (injectors, valves, plugs, piston crowns, combustion chambers, and in the old days, carburetors, etc). The reason is that temperatures, pressures, mix of oxygen versus combustion products, etc, are different in the different areas of the engine, so it makes sense that each area would have its own most effective class of compound. So a typical additive package is a blend of various compounds such that each area that the package is trying to address has a compound that is good at attacking that area. Since the packages used in top tier gas must clean all areas, they would likely contain a wider variety of active ingredients than an aftermarket additive tailored for one specific area.
Curious. Since the amount of sulfur in crude oil can be quite high and appears to be dependent on where the dinosaur and/or fern died, assume the sulfur level in Top Tier gas varies. Doubt gasoline is all made from Sweat Crude or refining removes to a fixed percentage.
Replacing the fuel level sensor in a C7 requires removing part of the drivetrain to get the two tanks and crossover pipe out; costs far more than $100.
Is there an additive that would be more selective to sulfur removal in the low pressure, cool environment in a fuel tank, like SeaFoam, etc?
[/I][/B]
Curious. Since the amount of sulfur in crude oil can be quite high and appears to be dependent on where the dinosaur and/or fern died, assume the sulfur level in Top Tier gas varies. Doubt gasoline is all made from Sweat Crude or refining removes to a fixed percentage.
Replacing the fuel level sensor in a C7 requires removing part of the drivetrain to get the two tanks and crossover pipe out; costs far more than $100.
Is there an additive that would be more selective to sulfur removal in the low pressure, cool environment in a fuel tank, like SeaFoam, etc?
Prior to about 2005 (I have forgotten the exact year) sulfur in gas varied from a few hundred to about a thousand parts per million (ppm) for exactly the reasons you mentioned (varying levels of sulfur in crude oil and varying methods of processing within the refinery). Starting about 2005, regulations reduced that to 30ppm, and as we speak, even more stringent regulations are in the process of reducing that to 10ppm. Thus, there’s no longer any significant variation in sulfur level in gas. However, like any other human activity, sometimes people screw up and higher sulfur gas gets past quality control measures into the marketplace. But such screw ups are increasingly rare as refiners get more used to the strict regulations. While there are obvious reasons to be suspicious, I do not quantitatively know (or to the best of my knowledge does anybody else) the extent to which pre-2005 sulfur level or post-2005 refinery screw ups correlate with gas gauge problems. There’s no doubt that there’s at least some linkage as illustrated by several known incidents. But there have been way more gas gauge failures with no known linkage to refinery sulfur problems, so it’s very unlikely that sulfur is the whole problem, or necessarily even the biggest single problem with the gas gauge issue.
As far as additives to prevent or reverse gas gauge problems, I have no knowledge beyond what I’ve heard on the forum as indicated in the second paragraph of post #27.
11-06-2017, 03:25 PM
It did help on this & I used 93 gas all the time also without the bad crap in the gas also.
