Engine Decarbon Service

[triode12]

Great thread.

I feel a little better now as I was talked into an injector and throttle body service/clean on my 45K service recently at an additional cost of $134 and $132 respectively (total $266 on top of the standard service costs). I was told there was evidence of carbon build up.

I wasn't sure the clean was necessary and thought that it was probably just a way for them to make more money. But I guess $5.90 per 1000km to keep it clean and running efficiently is reasonable.

I will sleep a little better tonight.

Which dealer in Sydney did you have your car serviced at?

Did they take apart the engine to do the clean or did they just use the spray can solution?

[doink]

Which dealer in Sydney did you have your car serviced at?

McGrath Sutherland

Did they take apart the engine to do the clean or did they just use the spray can solution?

Service receipt description states:

On Car Injector Service - attached appropriate apparatus to engine and fuel lines & completed preventative maintenance injection service using Fortron hi-pressure injector cleaner.

Throttle Body Service - Removed throttle body from vehicle, removed iac valve from throttle body, cleaned throttle body and iac valve mechanism, returned to same vehicle using tech one/two, completed necessary adjustments to fuel management system & road tested.

Obviously I wasn't there to see exactly what happened. Do these descriptions make sense?

[Transporter]

McGrath Sutherland



Service receipt description states:

On Car Injector Service - attached appropriate apparatus to engine and fuel lines & completed preventative maintenance injection service using Fortron hi-pressure injector cleaner.

Throttle Body Service - Removed throttle body from vehicle, removed iac valve from throttle body, cleaned throttle body and iac valve mechanism, returned to same vehicle using tech one/two, completed necessary adjustments to fuel management system & road tested.

Obviously I wasn't there to see exactly what happened. Do these descriptions make sense?

A generic aftermarket additive.

I would've refuse as well.

[gh172]

When I declined at the 45k service they said they'll do it at the 60k service. Not too sure which way to go with this as the 60k service is pretty expensive as it is!

[Nedbone]

The FORTRON product is a fuel system cleaner and will have nil effect on decarbonising and cleaning the valves, ports etc due to the direct injection system effectively bypassing the dirty valves, ports etc.

I previously had a WRX for nine years which had the Subaru Upper Cylinder Cleaner application at every scheduled servicing and as the car was bulletproof for 130,00Kms I am sure the treatment contributed to this reliability.

I have no doubt that if the Subaru Upper Cylinder Cleaning process was applied to VW vehicles at the VW recommended service intervals it would keep the valves, ports etc far cleaner than they apparently currently are.

Also, I notice that nobody has responded to the request to advise the applicable plenum vacuum line on any engine application that would be utilised to apply the Subaru Upper Cylinder Cleaner process. Anyone??

[parso_rex]

This is a car that was being cleansed out at Euro Revolution and I just happend to snap off a couple of pics with the phone. This is the second time its been done on this car too apparently, an Audi A3. I posted this on another forum a while ago and hope the owner doesn't mind.
This engine had over 100K kms on it so it probably has more blowby than most but its sort of random as to whether or not a particular car is suffering and its not easy to tell without removing the manifold. Any method of reducing blowby is a good thing so catch cans and PCV fixes are worthwhile even if only to delay the inevitable. Water meth injection would fix it but you'd have to be keen to do this. Less boost reduces blowby ofcourse but meh I doubt this is a option for anyone
I'm thinking I might be able to remove one of the sensors and slip in one of our snapon micro cameras for a look around... if it will fit. Haven't had the time to do this yet though.

I use the Subaru stuff all the time but no subaru cleaner is going to remove this....











Maybe though regular cleaning of the whole inlet tract with the upper engine cleaner would reduce the amount of gunk to some extent and probably this is what they are trying to achieve.

[noisuf]

I don't have a MKV Golf GTI so I can't say, but if someone puts up a picture of the motor with the engine cover off i'll point it out for you.

Hope someone can help locating the intake valve|plenum on the R32.

Pic of a R32 engine bay link:
R32 Engine Bay

[break]

Also, I notice that nobody has responded to the request to advise the applicable plenum vacuum line on any engine application that would be utilised to apply the Subaru Upper Cylinder Cleaner process. Anyone??

You get me a decent picture of the engine bay from top down without an engine cover on and i'll point it out to you

Hope someone can help locating the intake valve|plenum on the R32.

Pic of a R32 engine bay link:
R32 Engine Bay

Need a pic of the engine cover off and of further back in the engine bay, as I can't see any vacuum lines on the plenum in that shot.

[noisuf]

Are these better pictures?
R32 engine pic
R32 engine pic 2
R32 engine pic 3

Not my car but can take better pictures tomorrow when it's light.

I did a bit of reading and there isn't an engine cover on the R32? It's the intake manifold. Don't think I can take off the black plastic bit either?

[break]

Those pictures are all far too hard to tell. I really need a detailed picture of the rear part of the plenum (near where the intake pipe joins, where most of the small hoses appear in the photos above)

[Stevie1]

Some good feedback on this thread. So could someone sum up (for the mechanical ludite that i am), what i should be asking for to get this done the proper way for my wife's GTI?

Much appreciated!

[johnw]

Just looking at the pictures from parso_rex's post, the build up does look quite bad. However, being a DI engine, how much would it actually affect the performance?

I'm just thinking, since no fuel mixture is going pass the carbon build up, just air, the only problem would be when the build up gets so much that it restricts the airflow right? The Diesels look much worse but the petrol DI seems to be just a thinker film on the walls.

Please enlighten me if I have over simplified it as I am also concerned about this kind of build up (thus the catchcan setup on my 1.8T) but especially on the 3.2 DI in the passat.

[Corey_R]

You raise a good question johnw. I've spoken to Derek from European Autotech about this in the past, and he's said that it's made no diff in performance before and after the full cleaning even at 100k (by full cleaning I mean taking the engine apart and using solvents and scrubbing the valves and intake ports).

I asked this because I had already come to a similar conclusion to you - that the only thing coming in is air, so it's not like you need to maintain the fuel/air dispersion etc because that happens inside the cylinder!

[noisuf]

Those pictures are all far too hard to tell. I really need a detailed picture of the rear part of the plenum (near where the intake pipe joins, where most of the small hoses appear in the photos above)

Sorry mate. Hope these pics are good. Taken in the dark...

[break]

Still really can't tell from your photos. It's going to be one (or more) of the lines circled in the photo above, but it's simply too hard to tell without a clearer shot of these.

That said, there has to be someone here with a R32 who has done this before who can help us... surely....