nhnguy12

About a month ago my car had a pretty rough start and threw a misfire code. After a few seconds the idle went back to normal and I drove the car home with no problems. The code was "permanent" and I ended up having to clear it with my COBB device. Luckily this was just a one-off incident and it hasn't happened again. I just replaced the spark plugs and ignition coils less than 10k miles ago so I figured one of my fuel injectors got briefly gummed up. This led me down the rabbit hole of reading about fuel & oil additives. Just like oil threads, there are always a lot of very passionate opinions surrounding additives. I just want to share my findings/experiences, so please put your pitchforks away.

The two major components of Ceratec are MoS2 (a.k.a. "Moly") and boron nitride. Moly is a widely adopted lubricant that is found in high quantities in the more premium brands such as the 'Driven' family of oils. I didn't find any other existing commercial applications of boron nitride but there are a handful of peer-reviewed studies touting its efficacy as a lubricant additive (e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...43164899001465). I had coincidentally just changed my oil a couple hundred miles ago, so I thought I'd try a bottle of Ceratec first. This way I'd get a back to back comparison vs relatively fresh oil alone (I use LiquiMoly 5w40 every 5k miles or less). After a few heat cycles that included some spirited driving, I noticed that the engine has become significantly smoother while it is still cold. There is now a much smaller delta between how the engine feels when it's cold vs when it's fully up to temperature. I don't notice too much of a difference once the engine is fully warmed up. I saw some people claim Ceractec improved their gas mileage but that didn't happen for me. I also saw people say it dramatically reduced their oil consumption but my car barely burns any oil as-is (probably less than half a quart every 5k miles).

It was more difficult to locate objective findings when it came to fuel cleaner additives. I ultimately decided on BG 44K because it seemed to have the largest number of positive anecdotes. I also found this 3rd-party video of before/after BG 44K comparison of the combustion chambers:
I dumped in a bottle of their 'Platinum' formulation into a fresh tank of 91 octane from Costco. I can't say I noticed too much of a subjective change in the behavior of the engine since running through that tank of gas. My engine has never had a problem with firing right up even since the incident with the misfire code. I did however notice a small but repeatable increase in fuel efficiency. With my cruise control set at 80mph on a level highway I'm now consistently returning an extra ~1.5mpg than I was getting before. For kicks I hypermiled my car during my commute to work and actually got some pretty impressive results:


Not too bad for an engine with +117k miles on the clock. I couldn't drive like that all the time though. Very boring. But I'm satisfied that my engine doesn't have any glaring defects with how smoothly and efficiently it runs. I will be adding Ceratec to my oil change routine because it definitely feels like the engine has significantly less internal friction when cold. I'll be keeping an eye on how long my MPG gains last to see how often I want to add the BG 44K cleaner moving forwards or if I want to try a different product.

PRNDL

You might want to watch the latest PCA YouTube "Tech Tactics Live" video that went up on the 11th. Lubrication specialist Lake Speed Jr. talking about oil and gasoline additives. Extremely informative.

Ernest72

Stop looking at the mpg and do a blind test. Get a family member or friend to add or not add. Then see if you can pick when the product was added. I did this on my 04. WrX wagon with Lucas treatment, I felt like the car had more power and was smoother. I was only correct about 50% of the time, so it’s like the butt dyno or placebo. The mileage gain of about 2 mpg was consistent. My guess is over the lifetime these additives are not needed with proper maintenance and care.