I have a 98 Corolla with 98k. It’s a manual and does mostly city driving. I purchased the care with roughly 75k on it and am now getting trans. and coolant service done. The question is what is and how often should a fuel system cleanse be performed?
read your manual? although I’ve never heard of a “fuel system cleanse”, who suggested this? Perhaps you mean fuel filter?
Gasoline has fuel system cleaners in it. No other service is required. If you can find “fuel system cleaning” or something similar in your owner’s manual, do it. Otherwise, forget it. This “service” is what’s commonly referred to as a Profit Generator.
Cleaner is in all gasoline. Normally no car needs more. However there is a fuel filter that does need to be changed in most cars. Consult the owner’s manual for when it needs to be changed. While you are at it, take a look at all the things it list for regular maintenance and make sure you are fully up to date. Remember that many maintenance items have a time or miles (which ever comes first) maintenance interval.
The “fuel system cleanse” being offered by your friendly neighborhood mechanic is a procedure that has has nothing to do with the fuel filter, a component that might actually need periodic replacement. Instead, the shop is offering a chemical service that is completely unnecessary on most cars. Ever. Just tell them No.
When my 1994 Nissan was in for service I asked my mechanic (jokingly) if I should have a fuel system purge. He said no, the car was well maintained and today’s gasolines have a great deal of detergent in them to keep things clean. He said they routinely get cars in with 300,000 miles on them with the original fuel sytem, including injectors and meeting all emission tests.
Hi,Consider adding adding a can of Sea Foam to the gas with 8 gallions in the tank and driving it out.You will likly see some performance improvement. I find it is the best cleaner i have ever used and ony $7.00. I add a can once a year to some of our cars as they sit allot, too many cars, the ones that get driven daily i add a can every couple years. Happy travels to you. This makes our cars run real good an start righr up.
I recently saw data that indicated that only certain national chains of fueling stations add detergent to their gasoline. So my advice is to buy a bottle of fuel injector cleaner and pour it into the tank each time you change the oil. It should prevent you from ever needing to pay for the more expensive service that is offered by mechanics to manually disassemble and clean your fuel injectors. It is cheap insurance.
All of the preventattive maintenance you need to perform is listed in your owners’ manual maintenance scheule. You’ll not find a fuel system cleanse anywhere in there. Since you do mostly city driving, I suggest you follow the “severe use” maintenance schdedule.
Happy motoring.