Engine additives, good or no good?

[andy05]

I've heard injector cleaner is good stuff, but a lot of this expensive engine additive stuff (especially the stuff you put in your oil) can really stuff up your engine at worst. A $20 bottle of stuff that makes your smoke, engine rattles and mechanical problems go away sounds a little too good to be true, whats been some of your experiance with it? Btw, used wynns injector cleaner the other day, and the car seems to be running smoother at idle.

[mouce]

Injector cleaner is normally fairly safe. But you can just run a couple of tanks of BP Ultimate, Caltex Vortex or Optimax through it.

I'm with you though, a magical bottle that claims to fix everything sounds a little too perfect. Anyway, I look at it like this, if my car is blowing smoke, something is wrong, and an 'additive' will just be a band-aid fix, I'd rather fix it properly.

Engine oil flushers (which are mostly diesel) can be okay, but sometimes the sludge they stir up can clog the oil pickup, which means you have to take your sump off to clean it anyway!