Originally Posted By: BobFout
Originally Posted By: Trav
Top tier fuel may have enough additive to keep new injectors clean but from what I see do not do have much of a cleaning effect on already dirty injectors.
Originally Posted By: BJD78
additive do one thing and that is they are add to the profit of part stores and they lighten wallets.
Statements like this paint the subject with too broad a brush to be of any value.
Wasn't that one thing TT was specified to do? (prevent new deposits as well as clean existing deposits) [I have not researched it yet]
The amount of additives in Top Tier varies greatly and I see no real world evidence that it cleans already very dirty parts or injectors. Let me throw this out and you can draw your own conclusions.
Some car fuel sending units were badly effected with ethanol laced fuels (GM had a TSB for it) the repair was to run a bottle or two of Techron (GM brand) before replacing the sending unit, it quite often worked.
Go ahead a few year when more PEA cleaners hit the market, some aging vehicles were also being hit by this same issue, running them on TT even the best of them would not cure the issue but a couple of bottles of Techron, Redline Gumout or other high percentage PEA cleaners would. TT would however keep the issue from reoccurring without additional treatments.
Mobil has been advertising cleaning additives in their fuel since I was a kid but despite that systems still got dirty albeit at possibly a slower rate.
No doubt TT will help keep a new system is great condition and clean but don't expect it to do the same job in an older or dirty system.
With DI it and all the additives are basically worthless, I have 10 Audi V10 DI units here that are really hosed, all the filter baskets are non existent all that's left of the filter is the brass ring the plastic part has been burnt to a cinder and gone through the injectors clogging them. No cleaner in the tank or induced through the rail in the world is cleaning these.
High pressure back flush with powerful sweep ultrasonic (not the small ASNU tank incorporated in the machine) does the job but even that took a while, they did all come back to life. This car ran of TT since the day it was bought.
The other issue that effect fuel systems is varnish, its a bugger to remove and more common than you would think. TT does help keep it in check but once formed PEA cleaners or TT are less effective at removing it than something like Berrymans Chem Tool.
Injectors that have been sitting a long time get it in the injectors, the small amount of fuel left in them goes stale quickly making them harder to clean, on these I trigger the injectors and with an eye dropper put some Chem tool in them and let them site overnight. It really softens the varnish making it much easier for the ultrasonic to remove quickly.
All my OPE engines are 10+ yrs old, before using it I put a good splash in the tank (I don't bother measuring it) and do the same thing before storing it with sta-bil. No carb has been apart and the engines have never had a fuel or running issue. Put a splash in an OPE engine that previously ran great but now runs poorly after storage and most of the time it will clean up within 20 min on this product. At less than $5 its a great product that works.
I put a can in the car engine every 6 months, it works really well for varnish but does not work as well as PEA on harder deposits.
