Saturday, July 3, 2010

Are fuel additives really worth your time and money?

There is a significant market for after-market automotive fuel additives, but you will find varying opinions as to whether such products are necessary. When thinking about how most modern gasoline possesses detergents and other additives to help clean away engine deposits, spending additional money on additional fuel additives might seem less than essential. The online knowledge base Answer Bag sums up the consensus on fuel additive validity. For every person who gets the products that you add to the fuel tank, there are others who suggest that fuel additives are unnecessary.

Article source: Are fuel additives worth your time and money by Car Deal Expert

What fuel additives are really going to accomplish for you

Fuel additives say that they really do clean deposits from your car's gas. However, any MPG boosts tend to be minimal; they simply get your car back to where it’s intended to be within the first place in terms of miles per gallon. Using the proper octane rating in your gasoline achieves the very same effect. Octane-enhancer solutions, pills, magnets, additional filters and more might sound scientifically sound, but best thing for your automobile performance could actually come from that newfound lightness inside your wallet after purchasing such products, suggests Stason.org.

Don't think your gas can do the job?

According to a few different sources, a modern gasoline can contain any number of the following fuel additives, already in the mix:

  • Antioxidants – Which are there to prevent oxidation
  • Metal deactivators – There to inhibit copper, which can rapidly promote oxidation
  • Corrosion inhibitors – There to prevent corrosion caused by water condensation
  • Anti-icing additives – There because frozen fuel doesn’t burn
  • Anti-wear additives – Possibly to lessen wear and tear on cylinders and pistons.
  • Deposit-modifying additives – To change the composition of engine deposits for easier disposal

Don’t confuse your oxygen sensor

Your engine’s oxygen sensor (which was initially called a “Lambda Sensor” when they first showed up in European fuel-injected automobiles) is intended to monitor the fuel-oxygen mixture so that emissions are properly regulated. Fuel additives are able to change the expected exhaust gas composition and effectively confuse the sensor. If the oxygen sensor goes dead, your vehicle will burn much more gas and eventually damage the catalytic converter. That could cost you additional in repairs.

And nobody wants to deal with repairs when still paying down auto loans!

Citations:

Answer Bag

answerbag.com/q_view/750955

Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_additive

Stason.org

stason.org/TULARC/vehicles/gasoline-faq/index.html

AutohausAZ

autohausaz.com/html/emissions-oxygen_sensors.html

A crash course in what some fuel additives claim:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jbcCr2ll3c



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