Fuel Additives: Worth It?

[ChrisBlair]

Originally Posted by Camaro Dude

Indeed, the conclusion may or not be significant.

In my specific case, had it not been for this apparatus, I would never have discovered that my valley cover was defective.

The curious mind would, and should ask therefore, what would of happened if I never investigated, and just happily just chugged along as things were? Well, I'll be honest, although it's not my style with this next part, and that being that ignorance being bliss might have actually worked out well for this application (LS3 pushrod V8). It is the nature of this beast, and time has proven it is quite forgiving, unlike the direct injection V6's, and even the DI V8's with other manufacturers.

Audi V8 (FSI) direct injection engines, like the Camaro V6's, are plagued, almost doomed from the day they roll out of the factory to suffer from carbon buildup on the intake side of the engine. I owned a non-fsi Audi V8, and unlike my FSI friends, I had zero sludge issues after 6 digits on the odometer, and this was with NO catch can to prove the point.

The sad part is, unlike us here, some of the newer Audi RS applications do not have a catch can option in the aftermarket, and the ones that do, it's like $500 to buy and install one, which is unacceptable price point to many, so their troubleshooting and proactive protocols are completely different than what we come across on this particular forum.

But to play Devil's Advocate, the discovery you made had nothing to do with the intent of the catch can.

The same curious mind would ask how many aftermarket gizmos would be needed to negate the effects of unguessed at factory defects. Logic dictates that since your case was a factory defect, it was one of the small percentage of circumstances that falls so far from the norm that not only is it unlikely in the extreme to occur without the benefit of the catch can (especially since there is no design correlation between the two) , it never should have passed QA to begin with, at the factory, and thus never should have been handed to you in that condition in the first place.

[Camaro Dude]

Originally Posted by ChrisBlair

But to play Devil's Advocate, the discovery you made had nothing to do with the intent of the catch can.

The same curious mind would ask how many aftermarket gizmos would be needed to negate the effects of unguessed at factory defects. Logic dictates that since your case was a factory defect, it was one of the small percentage of circumstances that falls so far from the norm that not only is it unlikely in the extreme to occur without the benefit of the catch can (especially since there is no design correlation between the two) , it never should have passed QA to begin with, at the factory, and thus never should have been handed to you in that condition in the first place.

I understand your point, but..

The factory allowable +/- of engine oil consumption is and always has been quite unacceptable to me to begin with. That alone changes the playing field to me. Those numbers alone exempt them from the QA you speak of. I believe I posted up GM's acceptable oil consumption figures that I took a pic of a hard copy and posted on here. Their numbers are no different than the other manufacturers.

Before I bought this car, I did a lil research. I decided to buy the catch can, with intent to see, rather than a pre-loaded intent. I wasn't sure what to expect. For sure, had I observed a mere 1 ounce, say after 4000 miles, I'd probably say, well that was a waste of my $$$ wasn't it?

I've also become (sadly)less naive over time, a loss of trust if you will, for a growing number of things, no thanks to failures of some sort in retrospect. My will to experiment and investigate has thus grown.

I don't think we can write any conclusions on this debacle in stone, that is for sure, I fully understand what you mean, but I think you understand my view as well.