Irfie

Hello Guys,

Do you think its good to use a injector cleaner / fuel addictive? My C250 is now a bit over 100K Kms / 65K Miles.

If yes, then which one do you guys recommend?

Thank you for your help.

Regards,
Irfie

superangrypenguin

They don't really work. Just fill up a tank of Shell premium and call it a day.

Demvang

Chevron Techron

Irfie

Living in Dubai, we have only premium fuel, the normal i use is SUPER98

superangrypenguin

It's not about premium fuel - it's about what additives are added to the fuel.

Shell Premium/Vpower or whatever it's called is a top tier detergent gasoline and they've shown in lab testing that a lot of carbon buildup is removed with just 1 tank of their premium gas.

Same sort of thing with Chevron Techron.

Irfie

Ahhh, thought you said fill it with Shell premium fuel . Hmm, alright then I will get the fuel injector mentioned above and will try

superangrypenguin

I suspect that the issue at hand is that I was not clear, sorry about that.

Shell Premium Fuel has added detergents (with an amine molecule attached to it) vs the other grades of Shell fuel (same with Chevron). This helps it survive combustion and it tends to be a little more useful for direct injected engines. I'm fairly certain your vehicle has direct injection hence the suggestion to use Shell Premium fuel as its detergents are a tad more useful. Basically the detergent that is added to Shell premium fuel - if it survives the initial combustion - it may end up getting sent back through the intake valve for a second round of combustion. In this case, it may help you control carbon deposits.

The ONLY detergent/additive which may help you is the Redline SI1 cleaner:


This cleaner has a large amount of PEA added to the additive (phospho ether amine?). This molecule, when added to an additive makes it very likely to survive combustion and thus if it ends up back in the combustion cycle again after the initial round, -may help you with carbon buildup. - this scenario however is pretty unlikely but it gives you the best shot at helping your engine.

Please keep in mind that it's recommended for you to do an oil change shortly after adding in this additive. I have used this extensively in the past on Audi engines and it tends to break down engine oil a bit (especially if you have rings that are poorly seated).

bbbbbbb

Hi Irfie,
What I suspect you are really wanting to know is how to keep your engine running smoothly like it did when it was new? Hence, the question about the fuel additive.
Well what you really want to do is a GDI/DI system service on your car.
What that means is doing a complete cleaning of your internal combustion chamber on your engine. From the fuel to the oil, etc...
So what that involves is mainly doing an engine flush of your oil. The reason is because its actually carbon build up, that causes all the problems on your engine, including the fuel injectors getting dirty. Unless you use cheap gas which has NO additives in it. (Chevron, Shell and 76 all use additives in their fuel these days)
So how to do an engine flush is basically doing around 4 or 5 oil changes in one day, but each time you're adding the engine flush fluid to clean out the sludge and carbon build up.
So what you do is the following....
1) Drain out your oil,
2) Get a pump which will get the remaining oil, on the bottom of your oil pan, out like this one from ebay and stick the tube down the dipstick tube to get the remaining oil out.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Air-Power-A...19.m1438.l2649
3) change your oil filter out
4) put 1 quart of oil and the remaining amount put in an engine flush agent like, marvel mystery oil, seaform, XL Nanolube, or LiquidMoi. Any one of these works.
5) Put 1/4 of the engine flush into the fuel tank. You'll only need to do this once.
6) Turn on engine and let it run for like 20-30 mins (DO NOT REV THE ENGINE NOR DRIVE THE CAR!) Just let the car idle.
7) After the running idle time, drain the oil, change the oil filter and repeat step 4 and 5 again. Do this until you see the oil draining out being the same color as the oil going in.
8) Once the oil color coming out is clear or clean, then close up the drain plug, put new oil in along with 1 quart of marvel mystery oil and put in a new oil filter.
9) Next clean out your throttle body using a throttle body cleaner from CDC. Just use YouTube on seeing how to do this
10) Next clean your Mass Air Flow sensor of any carbon build up as well using MAF sensor cleaner. Again, use YouTube on seeing how to do this.
This process will keep the carbon build up in check and make any engine knock or ping go away. Then just drive your car until the next oil change.
Now, you'll only need to do this complete process like once every 30,000 miles. However, you should at least add 1 quart of engine flush to your engine (of course drain about a quart out first) to your oil about 500 miles before your next oil change. This will keep everything running perfect and get out any sludge that's starting to build up again.
AND... you'll only need to add the fuel additive when doing the complete DI system service as long as you use quality fuel like Chevron, Shell or 76. If you use the other fuels like Valero or Arco or BP, etc... make sure to put something like 1/4 of seaform, marvel mystery oil or Chevron techron with the fuel.
Another thing, If you do the oil change every 10,000 miles thing... make sure to change your oil filter, at the very least, every 5000 miles!
One last thing, consider putting in a oil catch tank into your air intake, this will also cut down on the carbon build up. Just go to Youtiube and search about using oil catch tanks/cans to find out more about them. Although Mercedes does install an Oil Separator to help combat the oil into fuel and air issue, having an oil catch tank in your engine will catch more of the oil missed that's sent into your air intake recycle.
Hope this is helpful? Yes, i know this was not answering your main question, but hopefully it answers your bigger question and concern of how to keep your engine running better, smoother and cleaner.?

Bernie

IGB

Check with your local dealer if they carry this in stock:
Part number: A 000 989 25 45 12



If they don't just use Chevron Techron....
Which you should be able to find through here:

UAE

Techron comes in 2 versions. Either "fuel injector cleaner" or "fuel system cleaner"... Either one should work.

Good luck!

superangrypenguin

Any idea what is in that MB cleaner? Yes, my dealer does stock it. Is it primarily PEA based or is this some shoddy STP product rebranded with a 900% price increase?

IGB

I am not an automotive engineer and rather than spend an inordinate amount of time trying to outbrain the engineers at Mercedes Benz, I would rather defer to their recommendations for a product they designed and manufactured to their specs. You're free to stick to your Redline SI-1 if you so choose!

That said, here is the full spec sheet on the Fuel Additive types that are recommended by Mercedes Benz. As you can clearly see, there is no mention of anything PEA based, and you certainly won't find anything relating to any Redline products...



As for all the time you spent on trying to justify your recommending Shell Premium Gasoline and Chevron gasoline, You clearly overlooked the fact that the OP in this thread lives in Dubai, UAE where neither Chevron/Shell gasolines nor Redline products are available.

ezshift5

IGB's informative post/enclosure appreciated.

I'lll continue with Chevron Supreme (California's broad-based predilection for the green approach to the healthy and happy life limits us to RON 91 use) for my beautiful little CPO coupe.


ez

bbbbbbb

Fuel cleaners only work on our cars like these with cleaning or keeping the fuel injectors clean. Other than that, that's all they are good for. If you're trying to use a fuel cleaner to like clean the intake valves, then these fuel cleaners will not work due to that the injectors on these cars spray the fuel inside the cylinder chamber and not on the back of the intake valves, like what Port Fuel injectors do.
But what you should be concerned with is using SeaFoam on your car to help reduce the carbon build up. At your mileage there will be a significant carbon build up by now. Don't wait until you hit 100,000 miles to do a carbon clean out with Seafoam, you can end up burning out your Cat due to all the carbon disintegrating.
Also, what will help more than anything with dealing with carbon build up is installing a Oil Catch Can that has a divider/filter/or mesh inside the can, along with a tube indicator to show how much it's filled up.
Installing one of these will reduce the carbon build up due to that they catch the blow back coming from the cylinder chamber. These don't prevent or solve the carbon build up issue, it just helps with minimizing the amount of carbon build up so you don't have to clean the carbon out as frequently using Seafoam or even taking the engine apart and manually scrubbing out the carbon.