Techron causing rough idle and low power?

[pghvolvo]

I run a bottle of Techron through my cars ONCE a year. If you use quality gas there is no need to be using it any more than that.
I was using anything cheap I could find in my Volvo. The car was running rough and fuel mileage was dropping. Poured in a bottle of Techron and filled up with Shell V-Power, within 200 miles she was purring. Fuel mileage came back on the third tank of Shell V-Power.

My moms Buick Park Avenue 3.8L V6 threw a code of a misfire on one of the cylinders. Tossed in a bottle of Techron and took a drive on the interstate for two hours and the code never came back. Yeah she drove it like a typical little old lady. The car was 10 years old and had only 14k miles on it.

 

[Malo83]

Throw a can of Berryman B12 in the tank and drive your troubles away.

 

[Creekside]

I used it in my 86 Chevy and caused some carburetor problems but that carb had never been apart so I can’t totally blame the cleaner. Some stated here that a couple of the additives aren’t kind to the gaskets and stuff in a carb. I dose two tanks of fuel before an oil change in my newer stuff and haven’t had any problems. Rarely I notice a difference in drive ability but it makes me sleep better at night.

 

[Vikas]

Yes, I followed the instructions on the bottle. It's just like how I add 2-cycle oil to my Rx-7.
When pouring it, I was surprised at how viscous it was, like 2-stoke if I had to estimate (maybe someone can find the viscosity to see). This is the base "carrier" oil I assume.
I'm guessing that the engine isn't too happy trying to combust the oil? I don't doubt the PEA has cleaning ability, that's why I bought the Techron in the first place

What? I have NOT used these additives in years but in the past I used to consume them like my favorite drug! I can tell you categorically that neither Techron nor the competing Gumout had that kind of viscoity.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

I run a bottle of Techron through my cars ONCE a year. If you use quality gas there is no need to be using it any more than that.
...

My moms Buick Park Avenue 3.8L V6 threw a code of a misfire on one of the cylinders. Tossed in a bottle of Techron and took a drive on the interstate for two hours and the code never came back. Yeah she drove it like a typical little old lady. The car was 10 years old and had only 14k miles on it.

Likely you would have achieved the same result by driving the car on the interstate for 2 hours without the Techron

I Counter, use quality fuel and no dosing required - ever.
But do as you wish of course.

It would Be great to see a PFI car scoped before teardown
and then after the tear down following a month's run with a bottle of techron - but all done using TT fuel.

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

I have always had issues whenever i used the stuff. I swore it off. I had also noted loss of power and harsh running that did go away with the next tank - if the next tank was clean fuel. Same with Gumout Regain

Last time I used it on a Nissan Rogue Select, I had long crank delayed or slow staring where I never had that issue before. That persisted for months.
I swore it off and I just tried to run clean, top tier fuel - hard to find clean fuel in my area. E10 is garbage much of the time.

Also, With 95K on the clock, Have you changed the sparkers yet? Next week may be the time.

Most folks I know in my area have these experiences with fuel and fuel systems:

#1 Those who ONLY buy and run fuel from the "name brand" stations, like say.... BP/ Marathon/ Valero/ Exxon / Shell / Chevron, etc....
(don't even know how many brands remain). Those folks go thru many miles and years of zero fuel related issues even if they do
or don't use those cleaners. Including me.

#2 The folks I know of including some family who do in fact end up often with frequent fuel related issues:
Those people all fill up with fuel from any old place they see. Like a Kangaroo brand gas station or those fried chicken or big convenient store places with gas pumps (almost as a side thing).
Those folks who call me every 14 -24 months to chat and then always get around to it. Ask me to trouble shoot their car problems over the phone. They are always in the 2nd group. They are always having fuel related issues. Always get a call later saying the same thing, "thanks man, you called it right" after having to take the car to the shop. They act as if we never went thru this before! Ugh. They do it over and over even though I tell them how to prevent it over and over! My only thought is they are too lazy to drive to a brand station or that the possible $1.00 or $3.00 they save on 10 - 20 gallons of gas makes them forget those $150 to $200 fuel system repairs they end up having to do every 1 to 2 years.

Ok now SHOOT. I am ready for all the howling about how all the gas in those pumps is the same and comes from the same places bla bla bla. What I described is reality. I know my experience (zero fuel related issues) as well as that of many others. I also know people in the fuel business who have explained exactly to me how and why this can happen. All of the gas U think is the same, from maybe the same distributors IS NOT the same.

 

[TumblrDucks]

Found Mazda-endorsed fuel system cleaner in a Mazda 6 forum, maybe try this next time?

Fuel Injector Cleaner

www.mazda6club.com

 

[totegoat]

Easier to buy Chevron gasoline with Techron in it..........

 

[odie]

Not in this region .

 

[Silver]

They are always having fuel related issues.

What issues are they having exactly?

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

What issues are they having exactly?

Hard starting. Those are usually the very first words they would say. Engine seems to not want to either stay running or idle normal. Also check engine light goes on and off without them doing anything. Some even have the old engine knock sound. Well, the ones who even know what that is. Mostly:
Rough idle. Say it is obvious that something has slowly changed. - they rev the engine / try to warm it up to keep from stalling sometimes.
Some have lack of pep / pick up (they describe a stumbling or hesitation?) when taking off. Also call it a spongy accelerator. They are stepping on the gas, and they can feel the car bogging down. Not all exactly the same.
Some stall out when they take foot off the gas and may kill at stop sign. Or just can feel or tell the car seems underpowered like it is starving.
Sometimes they just have water or bad gas from a place they fueled up at. Fuel filter plugs up at times and strangles over 50% of the flow or more.
Jerking engine that seems to take off and then it tries to stall out later.
Bruning too much more gas than usual.
The lucky ones only need a new fuel filter and some fresh gas, (additive that removes water) and with fresh fuel it gets a lot better.
*The good mechanics I used to know or work with always told me. Try to eliminate a fuel issue first. May solve things first even before getting into having to check for electrical or mechanical issues.
Oh, just a few of them that make it easy to figure where to start. I am 100% disabled now and cannot even do for myself anymore but they still call on me from time to time. I do not mind helping anyone. There is a good feeling when you can save someone time and money by pointing them the right way. The frustrating part is when you have proven to some what is happening, then they let it happen again! OOF.
The majority of the times they would tell me - mechanic changed out their fuel + fuel filters and things seemed to straighten out quickly. The worse ones end up with a lot more needed. Some even have shop tell them they had to empty tank, flush out and clean fuel lines and return + filter changes. A lot of money and frustration from not paying attention or trying to use quality fuel. Each to his own I guess.?
By the way, these things are not happening as often lately. Can't say why. Probably quit telling me cause they know the shape I am in or MAYBE started to use quality fuels? or????????

 

[Accent Abuser]

I'm going to suggest that perhaps the reason he's not noticed a difference is because the additive is keeping the system at it's best level, and therefore it can't get "better" than where it's at; hence no discernable change. Plus, if the system is being presumably kept very clean, he's also not seeing a degradation in fuel economy over time.

Systems which don't get cleaning additives will likely see a very small and subtle change over long periods of time. They slowly get dirtier with the passing of years. Someone who then, after years of not treating the system, suddenly decided to start using a PEA product for cleaning the fuel system, might possibly see a reasonly detectable change.

So the difference is ...
- if the system is kept clean all the time using PEA, there's really no difference to notice; the system stays status-quo in a constant clean state.
- versus someone who uses the cleaner after some period of neglecting the system, may be able to tell a difference from PEA use.


PEA is not snake oil; it is effective at it's job. The Gumout experiment which wwillson went to a few years back was very convincing in it's ability to clean the injectors and the cumbustion chamber; there's an older write up on it here somewhere on BITOG. However, you have to understand that PEA does not work miracles overnight generally; it cleans slowly and methodically. It's very doubful that anyone would easily notice and change over a day or even a week using the typica doses. The cleaning take place so slowly that it's hard to discern unless used and uber-high concentrations; not recommended. Gumout had a produce called "One and Done"; it was their highest concentration of PEA in bottle form, made to be used once a year, but they took it off the market. Why? Probably because selling one bottle a year versus selling one for every OCI makes for different sales opportunities. They do have a high-mileage version now; probalby just a higher does of PEA. I contacted them once to find out how much PEA was in each product by concentration level; they would not tell me; otherwise I could figure out how many bottles of one equaled another ...

BTW, the PEA in Gumout is the same active ingredient in Techron.

The key to using PEA is more as a preventative measure than an reactive afterthought. If used regularly it can aciheve it's task much easier and with more consistiency than trying to dump a lot in after a few years of doing nothing.

For those of us with GDI engines if you're not using a fuel system cleaner regularly you're gonna have a bad time once you surpass 60k.

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

For those of us with GDI engines if you're not using a fuel system cleaner regularly you're gonna have a bad time once you surpass 60k.

Yeah, a bunch of us got into all of that a few weeks back in another thread. All about chemical cleaning to prevent and then all the way to head removal and walnut shell blasting if you wait too long to try and keep clean. Some of those engine are more trouble with build up than others.
No one has been able to explain why yet. It is certainly not from special gas or oil use. GDi engines are a whole other story.

 

[Deo]

Yes, I followed the instructions on the bottle. It's just like how I add 2-cycle oil to my Rx-7.
When pouring it, I was surprised at how viscous it was, like 2-stoke if I had to estimate (maybe someone can find the viscosity to see). This is the base "carrier" oil I assume.
I'm guessing that the engine isn't too happy trying to combust the oil? I don't doubt the PEA has cleaning ability, that's why I bought the Techron in the first place

Can confirm it shouldn't be this viscous. Every time I've used it, it was like pouring vodka.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Most folks I know in my area have these experiences with fuel and fuel systems:

....

Ok now SHOOT. I am ready for all the howling about how all the gas in those pumps is the same and comes from the same places bla bla bla. What I described is reality. I know my experience (zero fuel related issues) as well as that of many others. I also know people in the fuel business who have explained exactly to me how and why this can happen. All of the gas U think is the same, from maybe the same distributors IS NOT the same.

Then I see stations around here getting "Midnight Dumps" from unbranded trucks. The same station who get replenished from the shiny branded trucks during the day.
Out in the midwest you have contrails. The dirty Crop Dusters "taking care" of some chemical waste (such as Methyl Chloroform-like degreasers and industrial solvents - or who knows what) by dramatically dispersing it up in the atmosphere.

There are no big crops to dust here, and no one really wants to shell out $$$$$ to transfer chem waste, so do I think it
goes into USts. If there is BIG money to be made ... you get the drift.

Another more likely cause - more often in the past - is water not being removed from the tank bottom. Actually with E10 - the alcohol component will do that for you until it gets saturated and drops out of solution onto the bottom of the tank. I used to put a couple dabs of Kolor Kut putty on the tank stick to indicate water. The boss never told me what the remediation would be. I think we usually had about 4-5" of bilge water on the bottom at the ARco Station I worked at in the 70's

 

[Accent Abuser]

Yeah, a bunch of us got into all of that a few weeks back in another thread. All about chemical cleaning to prevent and then all the way to head removal and walnut shell blasting if you wait too long to try and keep clean. Some of those engine are more trouble with build up than others.
No one has been able to explain why yet. It is certainly not from special gas or oil use. GDi engines are a whole other story.

No fuel washing the intake valves, injectors directly in the cylinder being exposed to combustion by-products, and the fact you need a perfect spray pattern at extremely high pressure for GDI to work correctly. Many GDI engines also have a lean burn mode when cruising at highway speeds where a pocket of air and fuel is mixed and ignited, with the overall cylinder mixture being as lean as 80:1, this won't work correctly if the fuel spray pattern is wrong. There's also the problem of soot. They just need more cleaning attention than regular engines but if you keep up with it they will run relatively trouble free (as I have proven with the mileage I have).

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

No fuel washing the intake valves, injectors directly in the cylinder being exposed to combustion by-products, and the fact you need a perfect spray pattern at extremely high pressure for GDI to work correctly. Many GDI engines also have a lean burn mode when cruising at highway speeds where a pocket of air and fuel is mixed and ignited, with the overall cylinder mixture being as lean as 80:1, this won't work correctly if the fuel spray pattern is wrong.

I have had a nephew chemical clean ours twice thru a vacuum hose. Also paid the dealership to do it once when it was in the shop for another small job. Trying to stay one step ahead of trouble. Car has about 71,000 miles and so far, so good. Car is running great so far.

 

[odie]

For those of us with GDI engines if you're not using a fuel system cleaner regularly you're gonna have a bad time once you surpass 60k.

Put in 10 ounce bottle of Techron w/ VALERO 89 w/E10 last fill . Top Tier 90 / 91 w/o ethanol or 88 / 89 with E 5 is getting very difficult to find . Have to travel 15+ miles to get it . Much gas is non branded , such as 91 non E or 88 / 89 w/E5 . Do put the unknown 91 non E in with 10 ounce bottle of Techron on occasion .

 

[sk_pete]

Pea stuff is also in Europe, I've read few people having troubles.
IMHO, tcw3 feeling better. I think it should also have cleaning effect.

 

[Accent Abuser]

Put in 10 ounce bottle of Techron w/ VALERO 89 w/E10 last fill . Top Tier 90 / 91 w/o ethanol or 88 / 89 with E 5 is getting very difficult to find . Have to travel 15+ miles to get it . Much gas is non branded , such as 91 non E or 88 / 89 w/E5 . Do put the unknown 91 non E in with 10 ounce bottle of Techron on occasion .

I don't think ethanol makes a difference.