Fuel Additive Question:

[Captain D]

Hello,

Some friends and I were debating whether or not to actually run the product (Star Tron Enzyme Treatment) in our older vehicle, which is a 1993 Subaru Legacy to combat the adverse effects of ethanol in today's gasoline.

However, a friend of mine suggested to NOT run it as it would be ideal for even older vehicles with only carburetors (such as in our 68-70' Dodge Chargers), but not in a 'newer' 1993 Subaru in that it could possibly damage the injectors. With all of this being said, what would you feel would be best: to run or not to run with vehicles that have injectors?

Thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing any pros/cons.
Best regards,
Aaron

[Ghoste]

Why did he feel it would damage the injectors?

[Cooter]

Normally, I don't condone additives. However, people see me puttin Marvel Mystery Oil in at every fill up, and wanna know why.
Ethanol is alcohol. It has no slime feel or oily residue. Therefore, to keep from putting fuel pumps in every 40k miles, I force lube it.

Never heard of additives 'hurting' injectors, but I've never heard of what you mention either. A 1993 Subaru ( depending on miles) if an injector went bad, most likely due to age/mileage before the additives....

[Captain D]

Thanks for the replies gents,

After enough research/consensus, I think the individual who said that it could damage the injectors was in error. As a side note, my 93' Subaru with 235k miles on her, is still going strong (knock on wood). We recently did a compression test and the readings were exactly on cue as if it just left the factory - the Subaru technician was rather shocked, lol. I didn't mean to take up space here on the forum, so if the mods wanted to delete this post - its totally understandable. I just knew that this site has a lot of excellent and knowledgeable experts here, so this was the first place I thought of with a tech question,  .

Thank you again and best wishes,
Aaron 

[A383Wing]

pretty much anything you add to the gas tank in the order of additives is snake oil in my opinion...I have never added anything or had a need to....waste of money

[Ghoste]

Not even fuel stabilizer or injector cleaner?

[A383Wing]

Not even fuel stabilizer or injector cleaner?

nope....nothing ever been added since I got my first car.....back in early 70's

[69wannabe]

Lucas makes an ethanol additive you add 1 oz to 5 gallons for the fuel we have to choose from these days. I use it often but not every time I put fuel in for the charger. In my newer but still old jeep grand cherokees I use seafoam sometimes and marvel mystery oil often to help keep carbon off the valves and should be good for the pump and injectors. May not be any good for nothing but I do notice that the pinging is minimal when I use the additives for awhile. The old jeeps could both use an overhaul and have some miles on them but still run good so a little additive will do til the cash can be saved up to do a rebuild on them. 

[Dino]

235,000 miles and running strong as if it was new is enough of an indicator for me that the car does NOT need any additives.  In fact it would be pretty foolish to change the formula its been receiving.  Why fix what is not broken?

Of all the additives you see in the parts store racks, I wonder how many truly make a difference.  Lots of snake oil out there.

[Ghoste]

Although I agree for the most part on the value of them, I think there are some additives that wouldn't fall into the "snake oil" category.

[Dino]

Although I agree for the most part on the value of them, I think there are some additives that wouldn't fall into the "snake oil" category.

I do as well, there are many that do work, but I would think there are more that do not.  In the OP's case, all he needs is a regular oil/plugs/filter change.