Do any of you guys use those fuel injector cleaning things, where you pour a bottle of the stuff in your gas tank for supposedly beneficial effects? My questions are....

1) Does the MINI engine even need this stuff? (I always use 94 octane fuel)

2) Will it make any difference, or is it a waste of time and money?

3) Could it possibly damage the engine or something?

4) If you DO use one, what brand do you recommend?



Thanks in advance!

 

I thought it said somewhere not to use additives...

 

Really? That's what I'm afraid of....

 

thats crazy talk, it's a very good thing to properly maintain your fuel injectors through routine use of fuel system cleaner. ALL gas (ron rating has nothing to do with whether or not the gas burns clean by the way, so the fact you use 94 octane is meaningless) will eventually clog the injectors...according to a government study. Believe what you will, but I've seen more than enough cars that had to go in for a 100 dollar injector cleaning that could have been avoided with routine, fairly inexpensive maintanence.


Now picking a good cleaner is the hard part. I have seen some tests performed by single persons in their garage, but thats about it. Nothing overly scientific. Most of the signs point to using techron, although I'm sure many of the others are ok too.

Don't be scared of additives just because a few are really snake oils.



And to be specific, I am almost positive it says don't use additives in the OIL. Even that is ok to do though, if you research the specific additive and are sure of its results (good synthetics already come with very good additive packages, that is why they say not to add anything else).