Does Anyone Regularly Use Various Treatments

[SAM LOVERS HER TOYOTAS]

HI...

Just had a thought...i was thinking of buying the following treatments to use on my avensis 1.8 vvti 2001 51 hatch Sr...

in the hope that they will each make my car run better/smoother/economical/etc etc!

1.wynns super charge oil treatment..to reduce oil consumption and Strengthen oil and to Quieten noisy engine and reduces exhaust smoke

2.Wynns clean burn emmissions reducer..to Improve fuel economy and Increases performance and acts as a combustion chamber and injector cleaner

3.Wynns hydraulic valve lifter..to Restore efficient working of hydraulic valve lifters and Lubricates and releases sticking valves and Reduces valve train noise and also Restores lost power

4.Cataclean...CAN REDUCE EMISSIONS BY UP TO 60% and THE ONLY PROVEN PRODUCT THAT ALSO CLEANS THE LAMBDA SENSOR and AND CATALYTIC CONVERTOR...although i dont know if i should give this a miss at £15+ a bottle incase it doesnt really work!

5.Wynns gear oil treatment..just to see if it makes gear changing much smoother

6.Wynns power steering stop leak..just to see if this will improve the power steering and reduce that noise on full locks!

Soooooo...what do you guys think...am i wasting my money on all these treatments? Do they work? Are they short lived chemicals that last say a week? Could i make things worse? All i want is a 86500 miler avensis to run like newer for now until i upgrade one day!!!

Please comment guys...thank you so much

SAMMY

[buzlby]

Hi Sam

In my humble experience, none of these ever does what it says on the can, which is why the claims are always so vague.

Additionally people like Toyota spend millions each day on R and D (except in the brakes dept !!), and if these things were half as good as they say they were, wouldnt they recomend them ?.

Lastly, how many of these products are used in the ultimate engine test (i.e. F1). None as far as I know.

Probably better of using decent branded products, and servicing the car regularly

Cheers

Bazzer

[carinfront]

Hi Sam

In my humble experience, none of these ever does what it says on the can, which is why the claims are always so vague.

Additionally people like Toyota spend millions each day on R and D (except in the brakes dept !!), and if these things were half as good as they say they were, wouldnt they recomend them ?.

Lastly, how many of these products are used in the ultimate engine test (i.e. F1). None as far as I know.

Probably better of using decent branded products, and servicing the car regularly

Cheers

Bazzer

Yup I agree. Not worth spending money on these, but to spend the money on bits that will make a real difference come service time, like the proper filters/plugs/good quality oil and so on. Judging the by the amount of posts you have here regarding your car, I reckon an upgrade is looking better day by day!

:)

[Jamesbelfast]

HI...

Just had a thought...i was thinking of buying the following treatments to use on my avensis 1.8 vvti 2001 51 hatch Sr...

in the hope that they will each make my car run better/smoother/economical/etc etc!

1.wynns super charge oil treatment..to reduce oil consumption and Strengthen oil and to Quieten noisy engine and reduces exhaust smoke

2.Wynns clean burn emmissions reducer..to Improve fuel economy and Increases performance and acts as a combustion chamber and injector cleaner

3.Wynns hydraulic valve lifter..to Restore efficient working of hydraulic valve lifters and Lubricates and releases sticking valves and Reduces valve train noise and also Restores lost power

4.Cataclean...CAN REDUCE EMISSIONS BY UP TO 60% and THE ONLY PROVEN PRODUCT THAT ALSO CLEANS THE LAMBDA SENSOR and AND CATALYTIC CONVERTOR...although i dont know if i should give this a miss at £15+ a bottle incase it doesnt really work!

5.Wynns gear oil treatment..just to see if it makes gear changing much smoother

6.Wynns power steering stop leak..just to see if this will improve the power steering and reduce that noise on full locks!

Soooooo...what do you guys think...am i wasting my money on all these treatments? Do they work? Are they short lived chemicals that last say a week? Could i make things worse? All i want is a 86500 miler avensis to run like newer for now until i upgrade one day!!!

Please comment guys...thank you so much

SAMMY

1. Most turbos don't take kindly to oil additives - their bearings are designed to work purely on the recommended oil - so why take the risk.

2. Most so-called engine cleaners usually just enhance either the octane or cetane levels temporarily in the fuel and if the negine is running OK why bother.

3. The so-called va;lve lifter treatment is known to make matteres worse depending on mileage.

4. Cat cleaning pruducts may help reduce emissions but that is because they alter the fuel and if either the CAT or lamda sensors are duff it'll not bring them back from the dead.

5. I would never recommend using gearbox oil additives as gearboxes rely on having a certain amount of friction in some areas to work correctly so by altering this apsect you can make matters worse.

6. The power steeering leak stuff is only a temporary solution if you have a leak proslem - so if it ain't brike why fix it.

In mu opinion there are very few magic addditive cures out there and in many cases they rely purely on the placebo effect so save your money either towards using good quality service materials or towards a better car. Remember if it ain't broke don't fix it and don't go down the road of "I'm going to keep fixing it till it's broke"

[Beagh1958]

To Sam.

Wynns have been around for a while & have a good reputation. But the only thing you should put in your car is the best quality oil & fuel you can afford. As to you your lambda problem, you need someone to plug in diagnostic equipment to confirm if lambda at fault is pre or post cat.

Regards, Beagh.

PS: Forget longlife servicing, you should change your filters & oil every 10,000 miles.

[Q.S.]

To Sam.

Wynns have been around for a while & have a good reputation. But the only thing you should put in your car is the best quality oil & fuel you can afford. As to you your lambda problem, you need someone to plug in diagnostic equipment to confirm if lambda at fault is pre or post cat.

Regards, Beagh.

PS: Forget longlife servicing, you should change your filters & oil every 10,000 miles.

Agree with ALL the above.

Have you ever seen the demo's at these shows / boot sales etc where they show how good their additive is on a roller bearing with a torque lever attached?

You can get EXACTLY the same effect by adding a drop or two of EP90 gear oil to the test sample. Engines DO NOT need extreme pressure additives in the oil, hence the oil companies do not add them.

Trust the oil (and fuel) companies to put in the required additives in your engine oil (and fuel). If you don't trust them, you're buying from the wrong companies.

[Thermal]

@Sam,

Many of these oil- and fuel additives stem from the racing scene of 30 - 40 or more years ago.

Engines used in racing are tuned to the extreme and may deliver up to 10 times the power of our average family car engines with the same cylinder size.

It is not difficult to imagine that forces and temperatures in those race engines are also extreme and therefore need some special additives to prevent them from blowing up after the first round.

Even with those additives and special precautions, those engines will only last a couple of races at best.

Of course the advertising companies will do their best to make us all believe that the extreme performance of those engines is the result of using their products.

They will not admit that the development costs and race team sponsoring needs to be recovered, and try to convince you that they have a cure for all your problems.

I'm not saying that some of these products may seem to help "sometimes".

But if you have a rattle, smoke, deposit or whatever, there is a problem somewhere that needs to be fixed, not to be masqueraded.

If you have an injury, a pain, or simply don’t feel well, you go to a doctor, and not a quack.

BTW, How much “newer” is the Avensis you are looking for?

[Roker]

In the 60s and 70s Molybdenum Disulfide oil additives was all the rage and in all sorts of lubrication products. Although it is not graphite it is often referred to as graphite. It was/is claimed to coat the engine internals and form a hard surface, and that the engine would still run without any oil. It is still available but not sold to the extent that is was in the past. I stand to be corrected but after years of promotion it was found that it could turn to grinding paste at high temperature thus negating the benefits.

In recent years some of the additive manufacturers have been taken to court because they do not do what they say on the can.

[Phoenix999]

Many years ago I used an oil additive that contained a fairly high level of PTFE.... I am convinced that this made the engine run better but then again a high quality oil has the same effect along with very regular oil changes.

As for the rest I would not bother given that the car is 9 years old. With respect I am of the opinion that all the running parts are well worn and most unlikely to benefit from any additives. I reckon it would now be better to change oil rather than add to it.

[stephen8]

Hi I have a Toyoya avensis 1.6 vvti 2001 and it overheated and it got a small water leak in the head and the valve stem seals went hard I put a bottle of Engine stop leak in to the rad and it waked after a day or two that was 14 months now. And i used wynns oil stop in the engine oil for the valve stem seals it worked after 2000 miles 3 bottles as the car was using a lot of oil, Wynns clam on the bottle it worked after 200 miles that was not my experience. Well the car passed the mot in jan 2014 the adds worked for me.

[Mike169]

Like the others have said don't waste your money unless you develop a problem.

For example, i had an old boat with 2 x big old Bedford 6 cyl diesels in it but one developed a leak from the engine front oil seal where i assume it had gone a bit hard. Getting spares was becoming an issue so i put in a Wynns product which claimed to put new life into old engine seals so i thought give it a go......and it worked!

I agree with all the comments on this thread and i think you may do more harm than good.....the best thing i feel you could do is run your car on the advanced fuel, V Power or Ultima depending on where you buy your fuel, personally i think Shells upgraded fuel runs well, about 9p a litre more but it has additives in it to clean injectors, combustion chambers etc, gives you more power so you use less fuel so actually do more miles per gallon....................personally i think cheap fuel from the supermarket is false economy but that's another can of worms to open up.

Regards Mike169

[fastbob72]

You know I wouldn't be so hasty. 

I've been running older motors for 25+ years now and I'm sure I've tried every possible additive on the market. Redex, Slick50,Octane boosters,STP,injector cleaners and god knows what else and to be honest they very rarely seem to make any difference whatsoever.

Even the old, remove your sparks, pour a 1/4 of a bottle of Redex down each cylinder, let it soak 15-30 mins then crank the engine over on the starter to expel the gunk and carbon and to remove the gummed up carbon and oil and free your rings to help them seal trick gives ambiguous results.

The trouble is you take this or other action to help your high miler and either it helps for a while or does very little but the problem is you cannot say exactly what would have happened if you did nothing. Ok, so it improves for 1000,2000 miles then seems to get worse but you've no real idea if having done nothing it would have began misbehaving in 500-750 miles because face it, you're engine must be causing you concern for you to want to take some action to improve things.So basically,up to the point you do or don't do anything the engine had issues. If you do nothing and it deteriorates over the next 1000 miles you'll believe if you'd treated it it prob would have kept it going. You put in an additive and again it deteriorates in the next 1000 miles you'll believe the additive was to blame.Either way, whether you add or don't it probably only had a 1000 miles left in it.

Adding something to help in an engine that's significantly worn won't make any difference because the rings, mains, big ends, cam journals or whatever are worn to the point filling the engine full of oil the consistency of golden syrup won't help, only a rebuild will do that. 

 

Now for a reasonably decent engine thay just starting to use a little oil but generally runs well then clearly the best thing is regular oil changes, every 3000-4000 miles I'd suggest and a top quality oil.

Will an oil additive helpat all?? 

Usually not but as I said in 25+ years I've found the only one that does seem to. work is Wynns, not sure about it increasing compression and all that but it does work. on noisy, rattling tappets, particularly hydraulic ones but solid.too.

Now, somebody commented that usimg higher octane fuel is a better move, gives you more power and better mpg etc. 

They are sort of right in a very roundabout way. Superunleaded and these Vmax power fuels or a whatever the particular brand name may be seem to have superior detergents and cleaners that will benefit a high miler, particularly our vvt-i motors it is said.

 

Apparently, filling every 4th tank with higher octane 97 or 98 ron fuel and the other 3 times run of the mill 95 octane unleaded is the best approach which is kind of what I do with mine.

 

As for the claim about getting more power from 98 ron V power or V max fuel is I'm afraid untrue.Higher octane fuel is more resistant to knocking allowing for higher compression ratio or more precisely higher cylinder temperature and pressure before knocking occurs. Unless your engine is experiencing predetonation and knocking on normal unleaded fuel then a higher octane will make absolutely no difference, if it ain't knocking you don't need to run it on fuel with a higher resistance to predetonation and preignition. If your engine is knocking during normal running on normal fuel then your engine has a lot more problems than a change of fuel can fix. No the benefit of Superunleaded or V power is in the superior cleaners and detergents. 

As for adding Wynns, well I tell you whay I'll let you know in a month or two whether it's good or bad. I've literally just sat down after doing an oil change on my 160,000 miles 1.8 vvt-i. It does use some oil, particularly if I give the engine a bit of abuse on the road but generally speaking it's fine but I've got another 1ZZ-FE engine in my garage which I will be stripping and rebuilding shortly, aswell as modifying a bit so I really want another 3000-6000 out of the engine I have. 

 

I've changed oil too, thought I'd try Mobil 3000 5W-30 fully synthetic instead of Halfords 5W-30 I've been using for the last few years. I tried Castrol Magnatec in my Redtop Vauxhalls and found it to be basically crap for the price of it and found the Halfords brand to be superior believe it or not but I've used Mobil this time round AND bunged in the old Wynns Supercharge oil treatment.Which as I've tried to explain, in my experience it's purely a judgement call. Plenty of people will tell you that you shouldn't use it and explain exactly why they know best but for me at least I've had a lifetime around cars and engines, maintaining, modifying and racing so I'll fall back on my experience rather than opinion lol