Hey Scotty,
I got a 2015 Kia Soul that has 129,000 miles, automatic transmission and a 1.6 engine. What is the best fuel additives out there? I had couple of mechanics recommend me seafoam to clean the fuel system and catalytic converter. I tried it once and it i dont remember seeing any changes on the gas tank. But I am willing to give other stuff a try as long as it doesn't destroy anything lol. Whats funny is when I changed the pcv valve recently, I noticed that fuel tanks wasn't taking as much gas as it used to. I drive it for 2 hours straight and I still had gas.
Thank you,
Lorenzo
Cape Coral,
Florida
Scotty has recommended ATS fuel system treatment as well as PEA-based fuel system cleaners such as Techron and Gumout. He specifically does not recommend using Seafoam, which was designed for 2-stroke outboard motors.
You should not use fuel additives on a regular basis, only when needed. They are not needed as part of a normal maintenance regimen.
@chucktobias i know u saying it cause scotty said as far as sea foam goes. However, I see many people use that stuff and apparently it works on there car. So maybe scotty can be wrong and is beneficial to motor cars as well and not just for boats. Scotty is the only guy I know that doesn't like it. Which is fine because that is perspective. But, if many mechanics told me to use it with as much years as scotty, than maybe I give it a shot again. Like I said, I did it once, and I didn't really any differences. And that is probably because I had problems with the pcv valve. But I appreciate u agreeing everything to what scotty says lol 😆. I love scotty, but sometimes he can be wrong. That don't mean he isn't a great mechanic.
You don't need to be adding fuel additives constantly. I typically gas up with whatever gas is cheapest in my old Ranger. I use V-Power in my Mustang. I've never had to use fuel system cleaner on the Mustang.
My Ranger started idling funky, so I plugged in my scan tool and selected live data. I noticed the long-term fuel trims were -15%, so I got a bottle of Royal Purple. I put the entire bottle in the tank at a half tank, and the fuel trims went back down to the "normal" -3%. It has almost 300k miles on the original fuel injectors.
@justin-shepherd yeah I know I may not need it because scotty told me few months back. However, I had a mechanic that has been fixing my car and my families cars for 50 plus years like scotty, and he recommended I put some fuel additives for it. He told me sea foam was good which I know scotty don't like it. I just like to try different additives that are good other than sea foam.
If I'm not mistaken Hyundai manual specifically calls for the use of gas additive every 7,500 mi if Top Tier gas is not available or used (check your manual). However, if you buy gas additive from Hyundai dealer, it's rebranded Techron (exact same bottle). Just use Techron before every oil change or ATS fuel treatment whenever needed. However, if you always use Top Tier gas you don't need to add any additives unless your engine ides rough, etc.
Used a bottle of Techron last month. It worked well for my purposes. Lke Justin's Ranger my Tacoma was a little 'irregular' so I mixed a bottle in 1/2 tank of gas, drove 180 miles. Still running fine, starts easy, the injection cleaning obviously helped out.
Royal Purple, Gum out, they're good injector cleaners. I've used all of these over the years. Techron happens to have worked nicely for me, recently.
ATS product might be called a 'professional grade' cleaner?
