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. The online knowledge base Answer Bag sums up the consensus on fuel additive validity. For every person who swears by the products that you add to the fuel tank, you will find a number of others who suggest that fuel additives are unnecessary.
What is really being accomplished with 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 supposed to be within the first place in terms of miles per gallon. Using the proper octane rating in your gasoline achieves the exact same effect. Octane-enhancer solutions, pills, magnets, additional filters and more may sound scientifically sound, but best thing for your 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?
According to a couple of different sources, a modern gasoline can contain any number of the following fuel additives, already within the mix:
- Antioxidants – To prevent oxidation
- Metal deactivators – Possibly to inhibit copper, which can rapidly promote oxidation
- Anti-icing additives – Just because frozen fuel doesn’t burn
- Anti-wear additives – To lessen wear and tear on cylinders and pistons.
- Deposit-modifying additives – There to change the composition of engine deposits for easier disposal
Don’t try to confuse your oxygen sensor
Your engine’s oxygen sensor (at first called a “Lambda Sensor” when they first appeared in European fuel-injected autos) is intended to monitor the fuel-oxygen mixture so that emissions are properly regulated. Fuel additives can change the expected exhaust gas composition and will then 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 seems to amount to major repair dollars.
And you do not want to think about repairs if you are still paying down your auto loan applications!
Find more information here:
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:
