[SideSwipe]

Originally Posted by Roy.S

My name is Roy.S and I'm a former additive addict.

Way to go Roy. Wishing you many more (S)miles ahead without addiction. Jokes aside, I have used fuel additives on a few occasions earlier and as many have spoken about it earlier, I strongly feel it is nothing but a placebo effect where your heart tricks your brain to believe it because you have paid your hard earned money for it and poor heart does not want you to feel bad that it is not working. Am just thinking of brilliant ways the marketing team of these products think and make you believe it is working.

Raises a lot of questions when you think about it little deeply.

1. Does this mean that stock fuel / oil is subpar?
2. How does these claim even work? Do we have a nano camera or sensors to evaluate the output promised?
3. What negative impact does it have on the materials and parts on a long-term usage.
4. Automobile Manufacturers spend billions and years of effort on R&D to come up with operational efficiency. Shouldn’t they have covered these claimed positive outcomes in their research?

Ok this may sound controversial but calling spade a spade.
In my experience, I half tanked up my almost new Duster with Shell diesel as a noble thought of pampering my new car. My the adverse happened.. My car started knocking and chocking after the top up… Had to live with it until I could use up the fuel and tank up regular fuel and ever since then, am sticking up to IOCL company bunks. Same scenario I heard from many in my biker group. So shell fuel works only when you fill up from almost empty tank and use it regularly but wont work well in tandem with other fuels. So in my opinion, again the increased mileage and power is just a mere placebo effect and not worth the additional money and hassles.

[Vaastav]

A lot of the additives I have seen have greatly exaggerated benefits, and may at best give some marginal benefit in certain cases. One additive that I have seen giving real benefit in general is the injector cleaner for diesel engines.
In my own experience, I have only used Nulon in my RX 100 and it did make the engine noticeay smoother in running

[Sebring]

Nulon had destroyed my Kawasaki engine. Then I stopped using it for life

Originally Posted by Vaastav

I have only used Nulon in my RX 100 and it did make the engine noticeay smoother in running

[KkVaidya]

I agree most of the fuel additives are of no use but I do believe fuel stabilizers work. They do not claim to enhance performance but prevent the fuel from disorienting when stored. Useful in low usage vehicles and garage queens.
Experts please comment

[sudeepg]

Fuel additives are recommended (Even by manufacturers) when there is no good quality fuel available and you have starting trouble with engines, not otherwise.

https://www.kia.com/content/dam/kia2...pter1_1_1.html

[Rohit_Quad]

An old one, but i feel is still relevant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efIJHf7h5kI

I might be a lone sailor here, but I believe some of the products form the well know manufacturers do what they say. The reason why we do not feel an instant change is due to the fact that, they help restore power and help increase the life over a long time. For example - lets say, one has deposits on the injectors, and using a fuel system cleaner would help clean them to an extent. This would not show an instant increase in power, but might have added a few more thousand KMS for the injectors lifespan. Same thing with an oil additive or an engine flush, if you get what i am trying to imply here. A good oil flush, on an city run/ high KMS engine, if done right, might help dissolve the carbon deposits/ sludge, but will not show any change in the vehicles behaviour immediately. What it might do is increase the longevity of the components inside.

[DRIV3R]

Originally Posted by sudeepg

Fuel additives are recommended (Even by manufacturers) when there is no good quality fuel available and you have starting trouble with engines, not otherwise.

https://www.kia.com/content/dam/kia2...pter1_1_1.html

Additionally there are car manufacturers that say strictly no additives and they themselves sell their co branded additives with service.

[vignesh.cv]

I have tried couple of products in the past and my experience has been quite good so far.

LiquiMoly Ceratec
Tried this on my diesel Laura, especially after all the mods and found that the engine ran bit more quieter and smoother and I also got some marginal gains in fuel economy with the same kind of running pattern. If you are concerned about wear and tear on a motor with lot of kilometers, you might want to try this. Current prices seem to be Rs.1.5k for a 300ml can and my car needed the entire 300ml for an oil change.

Redline Complete SI-1 Fuel System Cleaner
I started using this on my Apache RTR and my RSV4 to clean up deposits due to the varying fuel quality as well as blending done these days. I use this once in 6 months or so, and it has helped to keep the injectors on my RSV4 clean so far. Especially, the RSV4 as the bike doesn't get ridden as much and I was worried about the high octane fuel gumming up.

Interestingly, for the 6GT, given she has done approx 40k kms, the service person recommended using BMW branded fuel additive to help clean the internals. The recommended dosage was to add one can of fuel additive along with a full tank of diesel on every 3rd tank up. I've tried it twice, but cannot comment on the efficacy yet.

[Thyag]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Jeroen

First of all, I really feel honored to get quoted & replied by a distinguished Bhpian !

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Proof academic qualifications don’t protect you from a scam or placebo effects! Q.E.D.

Don't know whether I wrote wrongly, or others read wrongly or smiley at the end confused them further. I have clearly mentioned in the start "Anyway, no need to believe me - I don't have any Phd in petrochemical, just a Bachelors"

According to me the above line means, I am not qualified to advise anything but just here to share my experience & opinion , I hope even the thread opener also has asked for the same.

[parampath]

Since this is about additives in 2 wheeler, let me try to put in my experience.
- I use System G regularly in my 15 yr old Yamaha Gladiator. Works great. Without the additive, vehicle splutter and not so smooth, but with the additive, engine is a lot smoother and no splutter
- In my 5 yr old Suzuki gixxer, it do not may any visible difference. So I do not use it.

Coming to cars, I use System G in a Chevrolet Spark once a while and here again, the engine gets smooth.

So overall I am a fan of additive where things get a lot smoother in most cases.

[rvd8732]

In my experience it does, Ritz VDI at 91k mark; tried Abro injector cleaner on full tank and the engine felt smoother and refined

[shogun_man]

My first preference will always be to use unadulterated fuel & engine oil but fuel is officially adulterated with either ethanol or biodiesel in this country.
I recently tried an additive for the first time in my S-cross 1.6 - Liqui Moly diesel additive hoping that it would help combat the effects of adulterated fuel & it seems to have made a significant difference in the performance of the car. I am pretty sure that this is not placebo but I have not tried this in any other car.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Thyag

First of all, I really feel honored to get quoted & replied by a distinguished Bhpian !

Thanks, but there is no need to be honored. You really should not. I quote from just about all members irrespective who they are, what they have posted or how long they have been on the forum. Anything that cathces my eye, almost any topic under the sun and you are likely to find me putting my size 47 foot into it!

Apparently, the Dutch are blunt and direct?

Originally Posted by Thyag

According to me the above line means, I am not qualified to advise anything but just here to share my experience & opinion , I hope even the thread opener also has asked for the same.

10 out of 10 for honesty. I just added some thoughts as per my opinion.
I.e. it reads, just to avoid any misunderstanding “Have BSC, still bought snake oil!”.

Academic credentials do not make you smart perse. I have several and have tried, whilst I should know better, various snake oils!

Contrary to your experience, In my case they never worked. But then again, read my earlier post, I don’t believe individual experiences are very meaningful in these matters.

Jeroen

[hserus]

The engine oil, coolant etc additives are better not used at all. Nor is anything that claims to add a metal coating of some sort boron, molybdenum etc to the engine.

Cetane or octane boosters for diesel and petrol are quite fine. At least in India a lot of the fuel is badly adulterated up and down the supply chain before it even reaches the pump. Then depends on how much a shady pump will adulterate more, and you might feel your engine start dragging and knocking.

They’re still a very expensive way of turning ordinary 91 octane petrol into 95-100 octane premium petrol or normal cetane diesel to something like IOC xtragreen, which I think is the only higher cetane diesel rather than normal diesel with a smoother add pack.

[sdubey23]

There is a dedicated thread where the topic has been discussed at length. Makes for an excellent weekend read:

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techn...thread-74.html (The Fuel Additives Thread)

My TL;DR of going through the thread and from my personal experience with these products:

1. Additives of any type are NOT required if your vehicle is a newer model and you have maintained it as prescribed by the OEM.

However if your vehicle is older and has a lot of kms, some fuel additives will make a difference. I was facing idling and engine cut-off issues on my Himalayan BS3 with 60k kms on the ODO. I used Motul and HP additives on every alternate tank fill for about 2000 kms and they seem to have helped.

I also use the Wurth diesel additive for every 5k kms on my Mitsubishi Pajero Sport which now has 140k kms on the ODO. I'll be honest and say that I did notice a tiny improvement in NVH and drive quality the very first time I used it at 1 lac kms. But, the effect was so small and it lasted only a few kms. So, even when the effects wore-off I didn't really notice it. I however still use it to ensure long life of the fueling system and it is also recommended by the service advisor.

I also used an engine oil flush and a radiator flush at 130k kms on the Pajero when I switched to a different grade oil. This, again was upon the insistence of the service advisor. I don't think it made any difference to the performance though.

2. Using high quality, clean fuel and engine oil is better than spending on additives. For eg, Shell xtra premium diesel makes a ton of difference on my Pajero Sport. I have tested this over 10,000 kms and I easily get 2-3 km extra mileage and a smoother drive.