Thoughts /advice /views on gas additives

jaguar X Series 2.5 AWD 2O02. 91klm

 

What problem are you trying to fix?

 

nothing .....just keep reading of the cleaning action etc of some products

 

Modern gasoline has all the additives an engine could possibly use and more. Off the shelf fuel and oil additives are not required or of benefit. Save your money.

 

Just use a premium quality gasoline of at least 91 octane (North American): Shell, Petrocan, Chevron....they all contain all the additives you need.

 

Harry, like was mentioned, using off the shelf additives only benefits those making them. With that being said, a trick that you can do is if you use the same brand of gas all the time, periodically switch to a different brand for a tank or two. The reason why I say this is that each manufacturer has "their blend of additives" (and rather proud to advertise this fact). The problem comes that regardless of what blend of additives you add, something will get missed and will build up in your car. By switching to a different brand, you are changing the additives and stand a good chance of whatever Brand A left behind, Brand B is going to remove. Do this change say once or twice an oil change (on even intervals) and all will be good. No need to switch between tanks every time. It takes a fair amount of time for anything to build up in your fuel system.

With this being said, you will get more benefit from the periodic changing of your fuel filter. This should be done every 15K miles.

 

thanks Thermo.....shall keep replacing filter as you advise




X-Type ( X400 ) 2002 2.5 AWD /92,00 KLM /26 MPH = /{70% HWY)

 

There's no connection between octane level of a fuel and quantity/quality of additives.

 

He didn't say there was...but that is the case today; there is no difference in the additive package between grades (generally). If there is, they'll be advertising it and charging you more (whether it actually does anything or not).


Most people are surprised by the fact that lower octane fuel burns MORE EASILY that higher octane fuels!

 

Well, in fact, PetroCanada DOES claim that there are more additives in the 91+ octane fuel and so does Chevron and so does Shell...or are the notices at the pumps lying? (not beyond the realm of possibility, I admit).

 

The only ones that mattered were aniline oil and tetraethyl lead, and they don't use either of those anymore!

 

Lying? I think the technical term is marketing.

 

More additives that what? More than required? More than the evil competition?

Why would a high efficiency high compression engine require more cleaning additives than a low efficiency engine that can run on regular?

All of the brands you mentioned are part of the top tier marketing scheme. Read what they say about putting less additives in some grades of fuel over others:

Deposit Control | Top Tier Gas

In part:

The deposit control performance of unleaded gasoline conforming to section 4 of this document shall be met at the retail level in all grades of gasoline sold by a fuel company in all marketing areas of a selected nation.

 

This is how I thought; To save couple of $ each tank, the average difference between reg. and premium is about $0.50, if you fill up every 2/3 of the tank with reg. gas, say 10 gallons, that's $5 less than premium, you put in a bottle 0f octane booster about $2.50, so you save $2.50 each 10 gallons, that's not much, but if you're penny pincher you save $130 a year.

 

Problem is that a bottle of typical booster raises the octane by only .1 per tank. IOW, if added to 87 octane the fuel becomes 87.1.

Do the match again to see how many bottles you'd need to raise 87 to 91.

 

Typo: match -> math