Fuel Injection Cleaner with the Mazdaspeed 3
So being the driving enthusiast I am, In 1.5 years I have put 35,000 miles on my car. During my driving I noticed my gas mileage started to decrease. I cleaned the air filter religiously so that wasn’t the case, I change the oil every 5,000 miles with the recommended synthetic blend and only have a few bolt on mods at this point which increase airflow and should help with gas mileage, in theory.
With all this considered, when I went in for my latest oil change it was recommended that I get the fuel injection cleaning service for $75 dollars… Took me all of 1 second to respond NO! But this triggered a thought… clean the fuel injectors, dummy! So I went to Advance Autoparts and purchased a bottle of STP fuel injection cleaner. I asked the man behind the counter if this stuff really works or should I get the service done. He responded, “It works just fine and that service that is offered has the potential to make things worse because the blow air through the injectors and it could damage the pin”. Good enough reason to try it out for me!
When my tank was very low on fuel (1 to 2 bars) I added the fuel injection cleaner before filling up with 93 octane. Then I crossed my fingers. I drove it for 3/4th a tank of gas with the fuel injection cleaning additive. I did notice that the car ran a little funny. Nothing severe but it felt chunky and a little hesitant. I also did not beat up the car. I drove it like a granny. I didn’t accelerate to hard and didn’t go much over the speed limit during this time.
With this tank I did not notice any real improvements in my gas mileage. So after I got down to a 1/4th of a tank I filled up again with 93 octane. During the second tank of gas the car felt much smoother and had no hesitation. I also started to notice an increase in gas mileage. However, being that my driving is not the same every week I chalked it up to the increase in highway miles that week. So I tracked my gas mileage again on the third tank and the fourth and the fifth.
At about 8 tanks later and I had been averaging a steady 26.5 miles per gallon or greater for my routine driving. The best was 28 miles per gallon and the worst was 25 miles per gallon. But most of the time my computer read right around 26.3-8 miles per gallon now.
I am now at 38,000 miles and I am still pulling the same averages which leads me to believe that fuel injector cleaner is worth every penny! Just don’t go and add it to the fuel before you hit the track!
