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by Mike Furtado
Copyright (c), 2003, My Daily Driver -- All Rights Reserved 
The advertising media is constantly barraging us with products for our engines and fuel system. "It's a miracle", they say. After this engine was treated with our product, we froze it in a block of ice for a week, then chipped away enough ice for the fan to spin, and it started on the first try! Could this be true? Possibly. If it is, then shouldn't I use this product in my car? Not necessarily. Gasoline advertisements, fuel additives, oil, oil additives the ads just keep coming. I'd like to share with you with one man's opinions and experiences. I bought a 1974 V-8 automobile last summer and it was in great running condition. Naturally, I was interested in keeping it that way. So, before I put a drop of gas or oil in it, I asked around for opinions. They weren't in short supply. It seemed that everyone had a different take on the matter, and few had any real facts to back up the opinions. So I fell back on my own unfounded opinion "only the very best will do". 
First, a tank full of gas. The best I can get at the local pumps is 94 octane, so I filled up
on it. The car is running great. I bought lead additive to keep in the trunk in case I
couldn't reach a station with 94 octane at the pump.
Now I needed some oil. I went for a
standard type oil, and a brand I believe in (advertising does work). The car is still running
and sounding great. Knowing that this car was built in the day of leaded fuel, I used lead
additive in each tank with nothing more to back up that decision.
After having spent a considerable amount of money in fuel, lead additive, and octane
boost, I thought that testing my theories was in order. I filled the tank with a
mid-grade fuel. There seemed to
be a slight hesitation, and the fuel mileage decreased considerably. So let's try a tank
of "regular". The hesitation was much more pronounced, my gas mileage was in the dumps
and having terrible pre-ignition. Back to the high octane fuel, and the
difference was night and day. I'm happy paying for the premium fuel and being
relegated to a particular chain of filling stations to get it.Now what about the lead additive? Should I be paying for this in each tank of fuel? A little investigation found that leaded fuel engines were manufactured differently than unleaded motors. Where the unleaded motors use hardened steel in certain areas, the leaded engines didn't. Since I was unable to determine if my vehicle was manufactured for use with leaded fuel, I decided that the small cost of lead additive is preferable to the high cost of an engine overhaul. 
Is my choice of oil adequate? The same manufacturer offers an oil that they claim is engineered for higher mileage engines. I guess 128,000 miles qualifies. This "special" oil is about thirty cents more per quart than the standard oil. I use a quart to almost every tank full of fuel, so I think that small cost is justified. The most important thing in my opinion is frequent (2500 miles!) oil and filter changes. Throughout this process I have seen hundreds of other products to add to oil, fuel and even transmission fluid. This one claims to eliminate smoke, that one claim to increase fuel mileage, yet another claims to smooth out a rough running engine. I discounted all these claims and stuck to the methodology described above. 
When I was replacing my valve cover gaskets, it was very clear that there was
considerable sludge and buildup on the valve train. This is probably indicative of the
entire motor. I started looking more closely at all these "miracle" engine additives. I
settled on a particular product whose claims were mostly about "cleaning" this type of
sludge and buildup inside an engine.With great difficulty, I parted with the 35 bucks for their kit. Included was a quart of oil additive, a pint of fuel additive and a pint of transmission additive. I decided that I would just use the oil additive and see what happens. After running this additive for a thousand miles, I removed one valve cover to inspect the area for differences. Did they say miraculous? It was. The areas that were previously covered in black sludge now looked almost as clean as a new engine. I am convinced. My opinion, in summary, is buy fuel that your car runs well on and gives good mileage, use good oil, even a specially formulated high-mileage oil if your car qualifies, add lead if your car is old enough to need it, and you might even want to try one of these "miracle" additives if it looks like you might benefit from it. Try some of these simple tests yourself, and use the products that work best for your car. 
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