Got the injectors cleaned... It's only been 4 days and I'm already noticing a huge improvement in mileage. A few questions...

Will store-bought fuel injector cleaners (that you add to a tank of gas) clean the injectors as effectively as having them cleaned by a mechanic? Is there a big difference? - because there sure is a difference in price and I would rather opt for the $5 treatment.

Also, how often does everyone use fuel injector cleaners?

 

I am not really too sure about the fuel injector additives in the gas tank, but I have used seafaom (search the board). As far as what the mechanics do, we do them directly into the fuel rails so it's more of a direct cleaning than a gas cleaning. We use a fuel guage and compressed air at about 20 psi depending on the vehicle specs. One thing though is we have to disconnect the return lines to keep it from getting back into the gas tank since the cleaner is so strong and can cause the gas tank to rust or damage some of the fuel lines if it is rusted too.

 

To get an injector squeaky clean, it must be removed from the vehicle and shipped to RC Engineering (or the like) to be ultrasonically cleaned.

BG44K in tank cleans as good as you can get otherwise. Leave it in for as long as possible. i.e. burning a tank of fuel over a week of commuting will clean better than a single 5 hour road trip. I've heard good things about Techron as well.

 

I'll second the BG 44K. I use it religiously and have never had a problem with my injectors.

 

I used (upon suggestion here) the BG44K stuff about a year or two ago and it worked well.
So this year i go to get some for my dad's nissan p/u (v6) and nobody has it around here anymore. It seemed that before at least one or two of the big auto parts stores had it.
So i bought some valvoline injector cleaner it seemed alright (not much difference). I probably need to change the plugs also anyway.

-Another note that i noticed was that it was recommended to change the oil soon after running an injector cleaner.

 

Has anyone tried pressurized injector cleaner? Ford uses this technique for injection cleaning and it worked pretty well. It is a can of injection cleaner that is hooked to a small valve assembly and threaded onto the shrader valve on the fuel rail. Once the engine is running you tap the Fuel cutoff switch (impact switch) with a screwdriver to shut off the fuel pump. Then you quickly open the valve on the pressurized injection cleaner and let the engine run off of pure injection cleaner for about 5min. Ford's OBDII scanner runs a relative injector flow test and I have found that cleaning dirty injectors with this method makes a dramtic improvement.

I have been considering doing this on mine but haven't talked to Toyota to see if they have a pressurized cleaning solution. I also haven't even looked to make sure there is a shrader valve. (I am sure there is)

 

Most dealers have BG 44K. BG also has a three part cleaner like described above.
A quick web search came up w/ this. http://shop.store.yahoo.com/tri-maxx...powcarcle.html

http://www.storesonline.com/site/598...208?src=google

A little pricey, but I think my cost is like $14.00 direct from BG.