Redex petrol system cleaner

When I bought my V70 D5 I threw in a bottle of the Redex Emission Cleaner stuff you find in Tesco's because under hard acceleration it threw out smoke like a battleship running for cover, nearly 5K miles later - and every other tank fill using Shell V-Power diesel - I don't notice any smoke at all even at night with a car close behind me (it shows up in their headlights when present) - I did the same with my previous Focus with the same results.

Doubt it makes little if any difference to MPG but the combination of Redex and decent fuel certainly in my experience cleans up the emissions.

The best method of improving MPG is not pressing your right foot down as hard.
 
Merlin5 said:
My fuel consumption on my 1.6 Auris is good when sitting at about 56mph on motorways, it gets me about 52mpg
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Why do you sit on the motorway at 56mph? Isn't this both incredibly tedious and unnecessarily dangerous for other road users who may not be expecting you to be crawling along in the way they would a truck?
 
[TW]Fox said:
Why do you sit on the motorway at 56mph? Isn't this both incredibly tedious and unnecessarily dangerous for other road users who may not be expecting you to be crawling along in the way they would a truck?
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Seriously?
I mean, I get tedious, but "unnecessarily dangerous"? Come on! Anyone sufficiently surprised by the mere presence of a car doing 56MPH on a motorway, to the extent that it would put them in danger, probably shouldn't be behind a wheel themselves. It's annoying, but calling it dangerous is a real stretch.
 
I don't think it is, people driving at 56mph are at best a nuisance and at worst dangerous. It's a fast moving road, we have to make allowances for trucks and everyone knows exactly how fast a truck will be going but other traffic doing stupid speeds catches people out, partly the reason why the 60mph limit for vans on dual carriageways does not apply on motorways.

I accept that a 56mph driver should present no issue for a competent driver but many drivers are not such a thing.

There is just no rational reason for doing it.
 
[TW]Fox said:
I don't think it is, people driving at 56mph are at best a nuisance and at worst dangerous. It's a fast moving road, we have to make allowances for trucks and everyone knows exactly how fast a truck will be going but other traffic doing stupid speeds catches people out, partly the reason why the 60mph limit for vans on dual carriageways does not apply on motorways.

I accept that a 56mph driver should present no issue for a competent driver but many drivers are not such a thing.

There is just no rational reason for doing it.
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Well there is...fuel economy. It might not be one you consider important, but the OP drives a 1.6 litre hatchback and has started a thread asking specifically about engine treatments which claim to improve economy. Surely its obvious that its important to him?

Lots of people cruise slowly on the motorway for the same reason. Some people care more about savings than others, and some people drive cars where the saving is more noticeable. It might be irritating for others, buts it's not irrational.

If you don't think that the improvements gained by driving that slowly are worth it, why not just say that, instead of doing that thing where you pose a question you already know the answer to, just to get the OP to feel stupid.
 
[TW]Fox said:
I don't think it is, people driving at 56mph are at best a nuisance and at worst dangerous. It's a fast moving road, we have to make allowances for trucks and everyone knows exactly how fast a truck will be going but other traffic doing stupid speeds catches people out, partly the reason why the 60mph limit for vans on dual carriageways does not apply on motorways.

I accept that a 56mph driver should present no issue for a competent driver but many drivers are not such a thing.

There is just no rational reason for doing it.
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Plenty of cars drive along @56 ish mph on motorways & dual carriageways, its bloody annoying in an HGV as invariably my calibrated 55mph means I'm doing a little more than they are at the same indicated speed , I seem to notice far more cars sitting at this speed these days compared to say10 years back, I assume its down to fuel-saving - even though cars are generally far more efficient than they were a decade back.
 
Scania said:
Plenty of cars drive along @56 ish mph on motorways & dual carriageways, its bloody annoying in an HGV as invariably my calibrated 55mph means I'm doing a little more than they are at the same indicated speed , I seem to notice far more cars sitting at this speed these days compared to say10 years back, I assume its down to fuel-saving - even though cars are generally far more efficient than they were a decade back.
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This is the worst thing about it, I grant you. Driving slowly enough to force HGVs out is irrating and selfish.
 
Merlin5 said:
Hi guys. Just wondered how good Redex is if anyone here uses it?

My fuel consumption on my 1.6 Auris is good when sitting at about 56mph on motorways, it gets me about 52mpg. But most of my driving is short journeys in town and the mpg is awful. I was getting considerably more in the summer but now I'm getting about 23mpg.

Members on the Toyota forum I go to say that's not bad for this time of year and recommended Redex to help increase mpg. Does it work well and likely to save me more fuel than the cost of the bottle? Only £4.99 at europarts for a 4 shot bottle.
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May help, if the issue is the lack of cleaning agents. When driving petrol, always used Premium, diesel, not so much. Better just adding Redex as that's all the Premium diesel would offer, anyway, better cleaning.
About winter mpg, normal. Not so bad for long journeys, because as soon the engine is at optimal temperature, the mpg would be similar than before. Short journeys, that's bad. The engine won't even reach the optimal temperature before the trip is over, using an enriched mixture (more fuel/air ratio) delivering the mpg you're seeing.
Using a higher octane petrol would offer marginally benefit, if you change gear earlier, making use of the extra performance, but that's marginal.
 
Merlin5 said:
Actually, never been serviced since I bought it in April with a new 1 year MOT. But have only driven about a 1000 miles since then. I agree though and I want to have it serviced. I already called my mechanic before seeing your post asking him to come check my brakes because I noticed a burning smell today from the rear offside. I think something might be sticking. I'll get him to also service the car and check and change plugs, filter and oil.
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Yeh a sticking caliper is likely to affect fuel consumption - for obvious reasons!

Merlin5 said:
I pumped up my tyres a few nights ago. I'm not sure though if I have a slow puncture or valve leak on one tyre because I had a problem getting it to inflate.
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If you had a puncture so severe that it was struggling to inflate, your tyre would be pancake flat in about 20 minutes. You possibly just have a small/cheap tyre inflator that takes a loooong time to do anything.

Merlin5 said:
That stuff you linked certainly looks good. But is only good for 60 litres and if it doesn't improve the mpg much might not really be worth it?
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The thing is, you can spend £5 on Redex which is guaranteed to do nothing, with zero science backing up their claims, or £13 on something which is scientifically proven to clean engines and which is licenced to many major manufacturers which get sold in their dealerships (Toyota/BMW/Nissan etc). The concentration in Premium fuels is about 10% of what's in the Techron bottle - the high concentration is what your need to clean the carbon deposits/fuel system then to maintain it use premium fuels (super unleaded). You don't have to use it all the time, but once out of every three tankfuls is a good idea. If you use premium fuels all the time, there is no point in buying Techron because these fuels will have cleaned the engine as much as it can over time, but if you don't, it's definitely worth it. It's not going to turn your car into a Porsche, but if you are looking at fuel system cleaners, it's one of the only products I would bother looking at.

This has a bit more information about the different types of fuel system cleaners:

https://utilitywallet.com/best-fuel-injector-cleaners/
 
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[TW]Fox said:
I don't think it is, people driving at 56mph are at best a nuisance and at worst dangerous. It's a fast moving road, we have to make allowances for trucks and everyone knows exactly how fast a truck will be going but other traffic doing stupid speeds catches people out, partly the reason why the 60mph limit for vans on dual carriageways does not apply on motorways.

I accept that a 56mph driver should present no issue for a competent driver but many drivers are not such a thing.

There is just no rational reason for doing it.
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Heavy night last night?
 
Joe T said:
Heavy night last night?
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Another quality contribution to the discussion as always.

Have you never found yourself in a line of cars joining a motorway only to find the people in front braking upon unexpectedly encountering a bunch of people driving at 20mph under the limit on the inside lane?
 
[TW]Fox said:
Another quality contribution to the discussion as always.

Have you never found yourself in a line of cars joining a motorway only to find the people in front braking upon unexpectedly encountering a bunch of people driving at 20mph under the limit on the inside lane?
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Yup. I didn't think that the person driving at 14mph under the limit is the dangerous one though. It's the one who's had the entire length of a slip road to judge the speed of traffic they're joining, and then failed to do so.
 
Conscript said:
Yup. I didn't think that the person driving at 14mph under the limit is the dangerous one though. It's the one who's had the entire length of a slip road to judge the speed of traffic they're joining, and then failed to do so.
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My personal favourite are the drivers that hook it up the slip road and then treat the end of it as if there was a Give Way sign there.
 
Conscript said:
Yup. I didn't think that the person driving at 14mph under the limit is the dangerous one though. It's the one who's had the entire length of a slip road to judge the speed of traffic they're joining, and then failed to do so.
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They all join together to contribute to less than safe conditions. It would be far better if everyone's doing 70 on the motorway and people joining are matching their speed by the time they reach the bottom of the slip road.

Why is it necessary to drive a car down a motorway at 55mph?
 
[TW]Fox said:
They all join together to contribute to less than safe conditions. It would be far better if everyone's doing 70 on the motorway and people joining are matching their speed by the time they reach the bottom of the slip road.

Why is it necessary to drive a car down a motorway at 55mph?
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Already answered...at least why it might be desirable for some. I don't know why you persist in pretending to be perplexed at why some people might drive slowly on a motorway, in a thread where the entire discussion has revolved around fuel economy.

The point is, some people do it. I have agreed, several times now, that is less than ideal, annoying and irritating... but using your* own poor driving as an excuse for calling it dangerous is just laughable.

*the royal 'your', not you personally.
 
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