Agree! The gas never washes the intake valves. All the fuel injector cleaner can do is clean the fuel injectors! There are treatments that can be injected into the airstream through a vacuum port that claim to clean the valves.
I’ve been meaning to run an endoscope into the Audi DI engine we have just to see. Plus it allows me to use my newest tool, a lighted endoscope that sends the image wirelessly to my tablet in full color. Only $40!
I have thought about the camera check too. We have a Sonata with 92K miles on it. I haven’t bought any yet but the ones I am looking at don’t even need a tablet/etc. Example;
I already own a tablet and it gives me a bigger screen. Cool tech for pennies compared to what it used to cost!
Top Tier gas doesn’t clean the intake valves on direct injected engines. That’s the problem with direct injected engines.
But it does clean the intake valves on port injected engines to prevent this.
Tester
Which one did you get?
Depstech. With a 9 foot reach. A little longer than I need for most things but great for looking inside walls.
I never used Top Tier gas for my 05 4runner and wife has never used it for her 07 Lexus. There just weren’t any Top Tier stations near me or convenient for me when traveling to work. About 2 years ago a local chain (Irving Oil) started selling Top tier. It’s directly on my way to work and they are still one of the cheapest gas around. Wife still doesn’t use Top Tier in her lexus because there is no Irving where she travels. Over 210k miles and no ill effects so far.
I suspect that was years ago so how is that relevant to the current times ?
I don’t know if it’s federal or just state mandated…but around here no gas station has steel tanks anymore. All have been replaced with fiberglass or some type of plastic. The old steel tanks would eventually rust and fail. Some years ago a gas station within 200’ of my office window had their old steel tanks replaced. I watched as they pulled out the old tanks. The bottom half of the tanks had more holes in it then Bonnie and Clyde’s 32 Ford they were killed in.
15+ years ago, I used to have similar “bad gas” complaint to Costco in Northern Virginia, to the point I maintained a Costco membership, but avoided their gas station
once they transitioned to Top Tier, I decided to give it a try and I was pleasantly surprised, rarely use any other station nowadays
While it’s true that cleaners in the fuel will not reduce intake valve deposits in a GDI engine, the injectors are another story.
The business end of those injectors are in the combustion chamber, which is likely a “dirtier” place than an intake runner.
Aren’t some of today’s direct injection engines employing techniques to spray the fuel at the intake valve while it’s open? I recall reading they do it either with a separate injector or pulse or with directed aiming.
In those cases, the cleaners in a top tier fuel would help.
IIRC, that is exactly what Toyota is doing with its DI engines.