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Injector cleaning

35387 Views 14 Replies 14 Participants Last post by  bentin, 
M
I've had to have this done twice now at like $150 a job. Is this a job that anyone can do?

I feel that the stealership is cheating me on this. I know they jack prices up by like 300%+
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V
you shouldn't have too if you use top tier grade gas

also.. you can just get a can of seafoam and run that through the gas tank, it'll clean your injectors if they have any crud in them
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rdriggett
You wasted your money, you should not need this at all on our cars.
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D
Many brands sell injectior cleaners in any auto store that you put in your fuel tank when you next fill up, but you should only need to do that if your using lower octane fuel or many every 20,000 -30,000 kms
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minsanity
Mazda has this placebo...
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F
Do not pay for this!! Like others have said, buy a bottle of injector cleaner for $8 at your local auto parts store. Put that in your gas tank next time you fill up. Do this every 10K miles or so. We probably don't even need to do this right now since many of our cars are so new.
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D
If your injectors are fouled enough that they need cleaning, your check engine light (MIL) should light up. That is a legal requirement of the On-Board-Diagnostics system. Anything that causes rough-running or misfiring will trip the MIL, and if this happens within the first 8 years of a car's life it is covered by the emissions warranty.

Dave
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Hectik1
Seen this the other day! I am intrigued.

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L
That "Direct Injection" gas tank treatment makes no sense. Point is, in direct injection, no fuel is hitting the part of valve (back) that has the issue. You can put treatment in tank all you want but none of that chemical will make contact with the problem area.
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M
The Fuel System/Injector Cleaner made by Chevron that has Techron in it works really well. I've used it for years & can feel a difference after using it. If you use their gas, there is already Techron in it as an additive, just in lower amounts. Good stuff!

SDO
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Liquid said:
That "Direct Injection" gas tank treatment makes no sense. Point is, in direct injection, no fuel is hitting the part of valve (back) that has the issue. You can put treatment in tank all you want but none of that chemical will make contact with the problem area.
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OP is talking about injector cleaning not valve cleaning.
But to your point, yes all direct injection cars will have problems with carbon deposits building up on the back of valves.

Toyota has come up with a system that has direct injection as well as port injection, this eliminates that carbon build up problem.

I'd like to see if anyone on the forum with the skyactiv is having any carbon build up problems yet
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X
I just had the SA at the dealership recommend me the injector cleaning service for $150. lol
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KODO2.5
Most injectors cleaner on the market will not work (do a good job). Only some do minimum cleaning but not noticeable different. Don't waste your money. Our car will not ever needed that
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Z
KODO2.5 said:
Most injectors cleaner on the market will not work (do a good job). Only some do minimum cleaning but not noticeable different. Don't waste your money. Our car will not ever needed that
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this is the truth. just about all fuel out there already has detergents in it - it's just not necessary. people will dump this crap in their fuel tanks and say it works, but the car was probably working fine to begin with. there's no quantitative evidence there. try to look some up, not much out there. the companies that make injector cleaners prefer it that way. compound that with the fact that the only way to test properly is to put well over 200k kms on injectors with no additional cleaners, flow test, run cleaner and test again. see the problem?

i'm not saying that injector cleaners can't do anything - just that its not necessary. go pull some injectors out of the oldest POS car in a junkyard that you can find. i'm willing to bet that they will still flow just fine.

my old car had well over 300k kms on it and never saw a drop of any kind of magic cleaning chemical in its life. still ran perfectly when i got rid of it. the key is that i maintained it well.

one final thought: the fuel you buy is required to conform to chemical standards to ensure that it does its job right without causing undue engine wear. these injector cleaners are not. do we know how they will affect seals and other components? how will they affect the cat? how will they chemically interact with the fuel itself? it's probably going to be just fine....probably. we also have no way to answer these questions. i'm not prepared to take that chance with my cars. if i need the injectors cleaned, i'll pull them and either set up a reverse flow rig or drop them in an ultrasonic bath.
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Valor_X said:
OP is talking about injector cleaning not valve cleaning.
But to your point, yes all direct injection cars will have problems with carbon deposits building up on the back of valves.

Toyota has come up with a system that has direct injection as well as port injection, this eliminates that carbon build up problem.

I'd like to see if anyone on the forum with the skyactiv is having any carbon build up problems yet
Click to expand...
Toyota developed a port injector and direct injection system for the GT86, but it's got major issues with running lean at high rpms and has caused a number of engine failures on those cars. It's the right approach, but not the right application, yet.

I am surprised that more manufacturers haven't followed suit in a dual mode setup that uses a minor port injection setup to keep the intake valves wet. Higher operating temps have helped, hence BMW keeping the turbos in the vee of the their V8's, but it certainly hasn't eliminated the issue. Our cars will certainly need intake valve cleaning over time, either a chemical clean like SeaFoam into the intake path or a mechanical cleaning like walnut shells over the valves.
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