There is a very good market for after-market automotive fuel additives, but there are various opinions as to whether such products are necessary. When one considers that most modern gasoline has detergents and some other additives to help clean away engine deposits, spending additional money on additional fuel additives seem less than essential. Answer Bag sums up the general consensus on fuel additive validity. For each person who gets the products that you add to the fuel tank, you will find others who suggest that fuel additives are unnecessary.
What is really happening when you use additives
Fuel additives claim that they clean deposits from your car’s intake and fuel injection systems. However, any MPG boosts tend to be minimal; they get your car right back to where it’s intended to be within the first place in terms of miles per gallon. Using the proper octane rating inside your gasoline and keeping up with general maintenance achieve the same effect. Octane-enhancer solutions, pills, magnets, additional filters and more may sound scientifically sound, but best thing for automobile performance could really come from that newfound lightness in your wallet after purchasing such products, suggests Stason.org.
Don’t believe your gasoline can do the job?
A typical modern gasoline can contain any number of the following fuel additives, already within the mix:
- Antioxidants – Possibly to prevent oxidation
- Metal deactivators – Possibly to inhibit copper, which can rapidly promote oxidation
- Corrosion inhibitors – To prevent corrosion caused by water condensation
- Anti-icing additives – There because frozen fuel doesn’t burn
- Anti-wear additives – There to lessen wear and tear on cylinders and pistons.
- Deposit-modifying additives – There to change the composition of engine deposits for easier disposal
Try not to confuse your oxygen sensor
Your engine’s oxygen sensor (originally called a “Lambda Sensor” when they first appeared in European fuel-injected cars) 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 automobile will burn much more gas (the opposite of the desired effect from fuel additives) and eventually damage the catalytic converter. That amounts to major repair dollars.
And also you would rather not think about repairs when paying down auto loan financing!
:
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:
