engine flush

Honest John Back Room » The Back Room Archive
What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
View Threaded
Sun 28 Oct 2001 22:32
engine flush - peter great
Just had 30K service on my Puma and the Ford agent advised me to have engine flush.Have I wasted my £16?
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 28 Oct 2001 23:15
Re: engine flush - ladas are cool
some engine flushes are good, but a few are rubbish. i tried one by a company called 'car care' and it did little if nothing, but if it cost £16, it should be a decent version.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 29 Oct 2001 06:47
Re: engine flush - Andrew Moorey (Tune-Up Ltd.)
Personally I recommend using a quality engine flush (Texaco, Forte, Wynns)at every change if sticking to manufacturers schedules. This is because in my opinion service intervals are too long and the oil has lost much of its lubricating qualities and detergency by this time due to a build up of contaminants in the oil. If like me you change your oil more regularly 3-5000 mile intervals then the detergency in the quality oil that you use will not allow the build up of gunge inside the engine and flushing is not really necessary. A note of caution though, I would NEVER use an engine flush on a neglected high miler as the build up of sludges may be the only thing holding it together and as has happened to me, washing free the sludge served only to choke up the oil pickup pipe leading to total failure!!
In answer to your question though, I think you paid through the nose for the flush ( I charge £8.50) but it was not money wasted.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 29 Oct 2001 18:07
Re: engine flush - Honest John
If the car has a thinwall or alloy block with special bore liners (as is the case with the 1.7 litre Puma), or the engine's pistaons have special coatings (VAG TDI PD 115) you need to be very careful about things like engine flush and also your choice of oil.

HJ
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 30 Oct 2001 21:21
Re: engine flush confusion - peter great
Phoned my Ford dealer with over 50 garages across country and they do 100s of engine flushes on Zetec engines.Never had any complaints apparantly.They stand by it and the manufacturer of Forton stands by its product.
I phoned different chain of dealers and they dont recomend flushes claiming that it might damage pistons! Ford doesnt recomend it either.Does it mean one flush will damage engine?
Could someone explain whats going on?
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Wed 31 Oct 2001 08:55
Re: engine flush confusion - Dave
peter great wrote:
>
> Phoned my Ford dealer with over 50 garages across country and
> they do 100s of engine flushes on Zetec engines.

No, they charge for them. I doubt they do them. ;-)
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Tue 30 Oct 2001 01:30
Re: engine flush - ROBIN
Otherwise the time honoured ploy of running it on diesel specific oil for a few days works well.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link