Does anyone out there have any comments on this Plan which, it seems to me, promotes the use of an additive or additives to engine oil and, maybe other fluids, when servicing is done to relevant components, at, of course, additional cost? I had the stuff added to my oil at my last oil change realizing, later, that I was still covered for pretty much everything with my OEM warranty. The info sheet that was given to me describing the benefits of the Plan needed a Philadelphia lawyer to understand it and I don’t live in Philly.
In general, no additives are needed for any fluid if you’re maintaining your car correctly. If you feel the need to use one, get it at Walmart, etc. BG’s are heavily promoted by mechanics, and are very pricy. Not worth it to me.
If your car’s running poorly, then the problem needs to be identified and corrected.
Many plans like this are constructed in such a way that, in order to maintain whatever benefits are offered, it is either impossible to live up to given requirements or impossible to “prove” that someone has. So the “plan” is mostly to sell stuff with the promise of non-existent benefits.
Under normal conditions, no additives are needed for most cars. There are exceptions when the use is not what would normally expected
Modern oils and fuels have all the additives you need already in them.
Most of them don’t do any harm, but they also don’t do any real good.
You might use an additive that will decrease wear significantly on a specific part. What they don’t bother to tell you is that 99.87% of all cars will last several life times before that specific part will need to be serviced or replaced.
The plan is pretty much a crock and in my opinion, you should save your money.
BG sends reps around to shops to present a high pressure sales pitch. Service managers, who are most often mechanically clueless may buy into this pitch. Shop owners who are mechanically astute but ethically short, may buy into as a means of increasing profits.
The products will certainly not hurt but they will accomplish little if anything.
Mechanics are given a tiny financial incentive to use it by the redemption of tokens inside the can, bottle caps, labels, etc. which can be redeemed for varying amounts every month or so when the BG rep comes around.
I’ve worked for a dealer in the past who bought into this and have had quite a bit of experience with their products both in the shop and personally seeing as how I was the shop foreman and was given a free sample. None of them did one thing to help my cars so I assume that it did not help anyone else either, unless the Placebo was working.
Thank you very much. I think these sorts of “extras” are akin to the extended warranties pushed on me any time I go to certain electronic “box” stores.
Just like the “odourless outhouse” that worked fine until someone used it.Thank you.
True indeed. Also, in my experience, with cars and electronics, if anything serious is going to go wrong it tends to do so quite early on in the OEM warranty period. Thank you.
What an excellent assessment! I wonder, next time I go to buy or lease a new car, if I will be able to find a dealership that does not, in its service department, promote additives.
Glad it helps you but do not assume a shop (especially a new car dealer) is crooked because of the use of these products.
The vast majority of service managers at car dealerships are not mechanics and often have little mechanical ability. The SMs often honestly believe that the products make a world of difference. The same could be said for some independent shop owners.
BG products are good IF one needs a product like this but there are comparable products out there for far less money.
For instance. Price a can of BG fuel injector cleaner and weigh that against the price of a can of Berryman B-12 which can be purchased at any car parts store or even Wal Mart. The B-12 is dirt cheap in comparison and works much better in my opinion in situations where a cleaner is even suspected of being needed.
Regarding those tokens, bottle caps, etc. I mentioned, someone on eBay was recently auctioning off a small lot of those for about 1/4 of the face value and the seller stated that the potential buyer could redeem those for the full amount. True enough.
Smaller town dealerships would be a good place to start. My old Honda dealership never promoted any additives, nor did they suggest any unneeded maintenance; they actually said I could hold off on changing my timing belt until I hit 90k miles even though I had already went past the XX months period.
The Mazda dealership I took my CX-7 too was a big city dealership and they put this stuff in it by Krex. They didn’t ask if I wanted it, they just put it in there, then gave me a “discount” on the bill that gave it to me for free.
I’ve used a lot of BG products through the years and I can honestly say they are very good products. The one thing I will say is that these products are not for maintenance, but for vehicles which have been poorly maintained. so yeah i believe a BG protection plan isn’t for the maintenance minded. I once watched a bad running, smoking black out the tailpipe buick century “fixed” in an hour with a can of 44K. No I’m not a salesman and as a matter of fact we don’t use BG products at the shop anymore. Politics.