Originally Posted by LDB

...all of the actual additive packages are constantly evolving blends of things to get the best possible job done.

Originally Posted by LDB

...I wouldn’t go quite so far as to suggest that there’s now zero advantage to using different brand additives at different times, but it’s getting to the point that as long as you are using top tier something, differences are small...

Originally Posted by LDB

As you say, what follows is simply an educated guess. First some general background. As far as is known, the underlying reason that too much detergent makes things worse is that some fraction of the time, when a detergent molecule hits the hot surface of a valve, or piston crown, or combustion chamber, then rather than the molecule holding together and doing its “detergent thing”, the molecule degrades and forms deposits of its own. As you add more and more detergent, this happens more and more often. At the same time, if you start from zero detergent and then start adding detergent, the initial bit of detergent gets rid of a lot of gunk, but as things get cleaner and cleaner, there is less and less gunk to remove. So at some point, and this is the point of maximum detergent effectiveness, things are so clean already that if you add more detergent, there is so little gunk left that you add more deposits from the detergent than you subtract from the action of the detergent.

For this picture to change from using different additives (Shell, Chevron, Exxon, etc), then the additives would have to work via fundamentally different mechanisms. In other words, just to make a stupid example but one that will get the idea across, suppose the Shell additive was great at removing sand, but lousy at dirt and grease, Chevron was great at dirt, but lousy at sand and grease, and Exxon great at grease, but lousy at sand and dirt. Then mixing them together would make sense. Indeed, if you go back 20 years, there was a lot of truth in that view. Detergent technology as applied to cars was pretty much in its infancy, being spurred by the ever increasing demands for engine cleanliness to meet emissions standards. But these days, while everybody’s additives are a bit different due to patents, licensing, and search for competitive advantage, the differences between how they work and how effective they are, are getting smaller and smaller. I assume you know that Techron is not a specific and unchanging compound, any more than Shell’s “nitrogen enriched” package is a specific compound. They are simply marketing buzzwords, and all of the actual additive packages are constantly evolving blends of things to get the best possible job done. I wouldn’t go quite so far as to suggest that there’s now zero advantage to using different brand additives at different times, but it’s getting to the point that as long as you are using top tier something, differences are small.

The last issue is the “blow it out” strategy, where you use top tier without extra additives most of the time, but add a can of something every 10000 miles or so in hopes of knocking off any stuff that may have built up. Trouble is, you know that the extra can of detergent will add some extra detergent deposits. Not much, but also not zero. And the thing is, if you’ve consistently been using top tier, you’re not going to have many deposits to remove. Might you knock off a smidgen of deposits? Sure. Might you knock off a smidgen more if you use a different brand? Maybe. But remember, you a putting a smidgen on in the form of detergent deposits. So which smidgen is bigger? Ahhh, the $64,000 question, and I’ve come back to admitting that I don’t know. But perhaps if nothing else, I’ve explained why that beyond the statement that differences will be small, the answer of exactly which one is best is not obvious.

I guess I lied when I said the last paragraph was the last issue. I should mention one other thing. If you know you have a dirty engine from using cheapo fuel, or you know you are having a fuel gauge problem, than as the GM paper says, and as many posts have said on the Forum, a blast of additives can sometimes help. But your question, and the one I was addressing in the prior paragraphs of this post, is not about cleaning up a known dirty or malfunctioning engine. It is about keeping a clean, well-running engine as clean as possible. Keeping clean engines clean is a different topic than cleaning up dirty engines.

Originally Posted by Hameister

Interesting!

I notice there are a number of Techron products.

This one is sold at my local Wally World.



Which one do you guys use?

Originally Posted by Bob Nelson

I think that stuff at Costco is called ProGard. It has Techron in it.
It is not the full strength stuff.

Originally Posted by Bob Nelson

I think that stuff at Costco is called ProGard. It has Techron in it.
It is not the full strength stuff.

Originally Posted by Mad*Max

My tank was at less than 1/4 yesterday and filled it up till it was overflowing The fuel gauge reading was perfectly normal.

Started her up this morning and again the reading is normal. Don't know what happened with the Techron???

Originally Posted by johnny3

Where can you buy "Techron"?

Originally Posted by Gearhead Jim

Maybe, nothing?

I don't believe much in coincidences, but sometimes they do happen.

Let's hope it never happens again. If it does, then the appropriate move would be to add some Techron?

I don't understand all I know about this stuff...

Originally Posted by Mad*Max

I have noted that when I get onto the onramp to the highway aggressively the fuel level drops slightly and levels off when I resume straight driving on the highway for a minute or two.

I do not know if the car has done this from the outset and is normal? Has anybody noticed theirs?