[kaizengadi]

Does using engine oil additives and fuel additives make a difference in the overall health of the motorcycle or in the bigger picture does the benefit offered by these additives does not make sense in real life scenarios.

I own a 2 year old single cylinder motorcycle serviced as per manual timelines and use Higher Grade petrol (BP XP95, HP Power, Shell) whenever possible. Should I use these products during my next service or just skip it.

Below are the few products I have come across online.

1. Engine Oil Additives : MsO2 Liqui Moly Shooter, Armarol Nano Ultra
2. Engine Flush: Liqui Moly Engine Flush, 3M Engine Flush
3. Fuel Additive : Liqui Moly 4T Shooter

Please share your experience with these additives.

Thanks.

[BullettuPaandi]

I'm generally reluctant to use additives, as these are products we'd add to oil/fuel that we're about to use & there's no simple way of understanding what it does; so I'd rather not meddle with it. Certainly not with engine oil, as additives are part of most modern oils. So, a third party additive shouldn't be necessary, unless the engine oil manufacturer explicitly recommends some product for some sort of added benefits.

Flush shooters like Engine oil flush are a bit of an 'odd one out' amongst the three you mention. Because, these are used on products that we're about to dispose, like on old engine oil. Here, I'm not as reluctant. I have in fact tried Liqui Moly Engine Oil Flush Shooter, when I changed my engine oil recently. I was switching to an after-market oil & have never really witnessed the Service Centre mechanics changing my engine oil during first and second services. I thought the flush shooter was probably worth the shot, simply because it was cheap enough to consider. Although it was well overdue for an oil change, my bike has only run for about 5000km, so it was perhaps an overkill. So, didn't find anything unusual in the old oil.

I know this is not answering your question of 'are these snake oil?'. But, as a general rule of thumb, I find it safe to presume they are until overwhelming evidences are met. We're no chemists, after all; we can see or feel the difference in other physical components, but chemistry is not as simple. If at all the difference is perceptible, I do think it is probably in old 2-strokes with carburettors.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by kaizengadi

Does using engine oil additives and fuel additives make a difference in the overall health of the motorcycle or in the bigger picture does the benefit offered by these additives does not make sense in real life scenarios.
.

The short answer, yes it’s snake oil. The effects reported are just wishful thinking at best, but more likely to be simple placebo.

I have yet to see any credible test of any of these products. A credible test means running multiple engines under identical circumstances for a couple of thousand hours and taking all those engines apart, and measuring wear and tear on all the components and comparing.

Anything else is simply not a real test and personal experience are of course completely and utterly irrelevant on something like this.

Without concrete performance and wear and tear data before and after they are just opinions. Nothing to it.

There are a few additives that can be tested fairly simple in Laboratories. It’s mostly about additives to prevent diesel bug and diesel degradation. More a problem in marine diesel (e.g. on my boat) than on cars.

Also, additives to counter negative effects of ethanol in fuel can be lab tested. Spoiler alert, none of them really work, at best they cause some delay, but never protect fully.

Jeroen.

[GTO]

I don't believe in using fuel or oil additives at all, and most of their reported benefits are placebo effects. What I do believe in though is filling pure unadulterated petrol or diesel (preferably from company-owned-company-operated pumps) and good quality engine oil. This has worked well for all my cars, be it German luxury sedans or offroaders or beaters.

Some manufacturers have a sticker on the fuel lid saying "strictly no additives". That says it all.

Just stick to the maintenance schedule in your ownership manual and you'll be all set for 100,000 - 200,000 km of ownership.

[Kosfactor]

They are like Horlicks & Bournvita etc. They are only good for the ones who sell it. Once upon a time, hospital scenes in movies used to feature an unusually large bottle of Horlicks next to the bed.

Anyhow avoid them by all means.

If you have an old diesel vehicle, there maybe some positive effects to using an additive that cleans the injectors - perhaps a few times in its lifetime this is okay to use.

[Thyag]

Diesel Vehicle... yeaah. I use it every 10-15K kilometers in my aspire, I strongly feel a difference in response & smoothness.

Petrol Vehicle... naah. Petrol is already a solvent, so don't see any use of it.

Anyway, no need to believe me - I don't have any Phd in petrochemical, just a Bachelors

[Mortis]

As someone who likes to occasionally try out products like these, I would say that at best, they would provide a marginal difference (Less than 5%) and that too only the well recommended products.

They only make sense to try out :

1) If you are planning to keep the car for many miles or many kms. Slightly reducing the wear or performance degradation on an engine in such cases would be nice.

2) If you like experimenting and trying stuff out just to see what happens.

If you stick to the name brands then it's unlikely to cause any harm to your car, thanks to the litigious world we live in. The manufacturers claims will obviously be exaggerated but if you have realistic expectations, and are in tune with your vehicle, your butt dyno won't be disappointed !
There is always the argument that if XYZ was so great, why don't manufacturers include it ? It's simply a matter of cost. They are happy enough to reduce costs by using 1 less screw and saving 10 grams of metal and plastic or using only 1 gram or whatever is enough to meet specifications of Moly in the oil instead of 5 gms. Tinfoil hat reason would be to get your car in even one extra time for part replacement or repairs during its lifetime.

Now however cleaning, restoration and repair products definitely fall in the category of stuff to use occasionally as a preventative measure or as an emergency or trial option before an expensive fix.
It's good to use an injector cleaner once in a while.
If you have a GDI engine without port injection, it's good to use an intake valve cleaner occasionally to reduce carbon buildup.
If you are on a road trip and your radiator starts leaking in the middle of nowhere a radiator leak stopper might help you get to the next town or eliminate a gasket failure as the reason for your cars weird behaviour

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Thyag

Anyway, no need to believe me - I don't have any Phd in petrochemical, just a Bachelors

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

You are in good company. Lots of highly qualified people believe and or subscribe to highly dubious and certainly not scientifically proven theories, medicines, treatments and so on.

We probably all do at some point in our life, most likely several times over. I know I have. Bought plenty of stuff whilst knowing damn well it would never work!

As the saying goes: a sucker is born every minute! (Showman P.T. Barnum) ��

Jeroen

[Roy.S]

I've used all manner of additives in my G13BB Swift over the last 17 years and 2 lac km. Engine flushes, Gearbox oil additives, petrol additives, injector cleaning additives...
I never passed up a chance to use an additive and my additive addiction got worse after amazon started selling them.
I guarantee you all of them are snake oil or worse.
The only thing that made a difference was fully synthetic oil and unadulterated fuel.
My name is Roy.S and I'm a former additive addict.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Roy.S

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

Way to go Roy!

Ladies and gentlemen, hands together for Roy please!

Jeroen

[NO_NOx]

No 'special' chemical additives can reduce:

1. Normal wear from metal-to-metal friction
2. Abnormal wear from bad driving
3. Small combustion blow-by from modern low-tension piston rings

Even an hour of driving will turn the colour of new engine oil from yellow to brown.
The only products that may work are chemicals like glycol ethers or siloxane polymers to rejuvenate old seals.

[AMG Power]

How I busted my crank bearings:

I had changed the engine oil in my Gypsy and added Nulon (one of the earlier additives) and was driving up the ghats red lining the car with the comfort that the engine had fresh oil.

Halfway through the climb the crank shaft bearings went bust. Hindsight tells me that if it was just the engine oil nothing of this sort would have happened.

The additive obviously diluted the engine oil viscosity to an extent there was very little lubrication at the bearings.

Lesson learnt the hard way as a young and I must add, not too knowledgeable enthusiast.

[Jordygt500]

I once used diesel in Karizma ZMR 2010 after removing engine oil to clean the engine. I just asked mechanic to put 1 litre of diesel in engine, started the engine and kept it on idle for 2 minutes and didn't rev it. Flushed the diesel and checked it had become thick and dark. Put the synthetic oil and immediately felt the engine being smooth for all the first 500 odd kms after that it was as usual. The bike had 70k on the odometer then.
I just used the diesel to clean the engine didn't expect any gains other than cleaner engine.

[dvskhh]

As most memebers have shared their wisdom, looks like most of these additives are not useful. My experience with fuel injector cleaners, MOS2 and Ceratec has been the same, found no perceivable difference.

However, project farm has a demostration which shows ceratec might work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H_mZTh5bHY

I have no affilation to project farm. It's a public channel and thus posting it.

[PearlJam]

Long back my service center added engine oil additive without my consent, during a routine service.

I never noticed whether it made any difference to the driving or not, nor am I competent to know whether it's good internally for engine health. But I definitely did notice immediately that it made a difference to my total bill!

I had never read about additives being recommended in the user manual, so I asked him to show me any document/circular from Hyundai, that says that Hyundai recommends this. As expected, he fumbled and stammered, and promised to always ask in future.