I have seen gas additives advertised and “Use water for Gas” conversion kits.
I have heard that synthetic oil increases mileages and that Cyclone air thingie will improve gas mileages etc. etc.
Is any of this real or just scams???
almost all of them are scams. Synthetic oil will help a little but nowhere near enough to offset the expense of the oil itself. That being said, a good group IV synthetic does provide better protection than dino oil.
The Cyclone thingie, or the Tornado, is just non-working junk. The water scam catches many dummies. Synthetic oil, while useful, will not improve your gas mileage enough to be measured. There are many other miracle products available. (Did you run across acetone yet?) None of them live up to their claims. None! Rip-offs all!
The gas saver devices are all scams. We’ve had numerous enquiries on these and analyzed them to death.
Some cars recommend synthetic oil, especially those that have turbos, but by and large it makes no difference if you change the oil and filter regularly. I’ve never seen a shred of actual evidnce that synthetic prolongs engine life or reliability and have never worn out en engine even after 40 years of using dino, and even after hudreds of thousands of miles.
Just don’t try to extend your periods between changes. Synthetics are subject to dilution by blowby gasses and contamination by particulates just like dinos, and there IS ample evidence that insufficient oil changes reduce engine life.
www.carbibles.com has a good primer on oils. I suggest a visit.
Proper inflation of appropriate tires, maintenance, and proper driving are the apparent keys to good gas mileage. Headers, cold air intakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and other snake oil tricks are either totally useless or marginal at best. When the fine print is read it seems that most improvements are at wide open throttle pulling a load great enough to keep the engine maxed out… How often do we race up Pike’s Peak pulling an Airstream?
Use water for Gas … Total SCAM
Synthetic oil increases mileages … Part Truth
Cyclone air thingie … It was a scam in the 60’ and it still is today.
You can increase mileage by the proper use of synthetic oils. However the real increase is very very small. Assuming you continue to follow the car manufacturer’s oil change intervals, you will likely gain more due to decreased wear than in fuel savings and together the savings might offset the increased cost of the oil.
Did you read the comments posted under the article? Many of them contradict the article, which might cause more confusion.
Paulee, for saving fuel, I recommend you:
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clean your car…inside and out. Unload any access cargo. Lightening your load will help your car use less fuel and a waxed car is slightly more aerodynamic than a non-waxed car.
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Inspect your air filter every time you change your oil. As soon as it appears dirty (which is usually around 15,000 miles), change it. Overkill won’t help, but a dirty air filter will choke your engine and lead to higher fuel usage.
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Check and inflate your tires once a week. This may sound excessive compared to the normal “once a month” recommendation, but it isn’t. Inflate them to the PSI ratings on the sticker on the driver’s door frame and in the owner’s manual, not the ratings on the tires.
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Get all maintenance done on time, including transmission fluid, oil changes, and coolant flushes.
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Drive like a sane senior citizen. Avoid quick starts and quick stops.
First of all, synthetic oil is not a scam. But the gas saving benefits are rather small. The main benefit of it is the fact that it reduces friction, and that will reduce fuel consumption, but mainly reduces engine wear. And that greatly extends engine life.
The other things have been around for decades, along with the claims that car companies do not want you to know about them, because they are in collusion with the gas companies. Which never made sense when gas was cheap, as there was very little benefit to a car getting high gas mileage at 33 cents a gallon. Americans were never interested in buying high fuel mileage cars until the price of gas went up.
And with that increase in gas price, and the increase in pollution controls, the government started fining auto companies for cars that did not meet fuel consumption standards. Car companies would save massive amounts of money, and sell far more big engines, if they could put something cheap on the cars that would help meet the standards.
By the way, all the items have been tested and all have been found wanting. At best, the gas mileage improvement is miniscule, and at worst it goes down when using the gadgets. And there is always the possibilities of harm to the engine from some of them.