A vehicle’s fuel system is, no doubt, one of the most important parts of a car. Its primary function is to store and supply fuel (diesel or gasoline), needed to keep your engine running. Furthermore, the system consists of several different components; they include the fuel tank, fuel pump, filter, and fuel injector or carburetor.
Speaking of the fuel injector, it’s the component that injects fuel into the intake manifold, where the air-fuel mixture takes place. You need to understand that the injector isn’t without its issue. When it becomes dirty, it may cause your car’s engine to misfire. To avoid this issue and a few others, it’s essential to always clean your fuel injector regularly using a fuel injector cleaner.
Fuel injector cleaner and fuel system cleaner are two different products. The former works by helping you clean all deposits in your car’s injection system. The latter, however, works by cleaning and eliminating harmful carbon buildup from the entire fuel system.
As you read through the rest of this post, you’ll find everything you need to know about both fuel injector cleaner and fuel system cleaner, including their differences.
Do You Need to Change Oil After Using a Fuel Injector Cleaner?
I used to buy a bottle of fuel injection cleaner every so often in my last vehicle and noticed little difference, but I don’t think it hurt in anyway.
If I could go back to driving that vehicle I would have switched to using Tier One Gasoline brands. Which is a rating given to fuels that contain cleaning additives which keeps gunk and deposits from building up in your engine. Certain gas stations use what is rated as Tier One gasoline, such as Shell and BP gas stations.
Also instead of using typical fuel injection cleaner or fuel system cleaner ( I tried both). I would opt for using a multi system tune up cleaner.
Such as this one on Amazon. You can’t go wrong with Gumout Brand!
What are the components of the fuel system
A car’s fuel system is engineered to supply the exact amount of fuel to the engine. The system comprises four main components; filter, pump, tank, and injector or carburetor.
The fuel tank acts as the reservoir for securely storing fuel for your car. The fuel filter is primarily designed to keep harmful debris from entering your car engine. The fuel pump, which could either be in-tank or external, is the component responsible for sucking fuel from the tank and transferring it through the filter to your car’s fuel injector.
The work of the fuel injector, as previously mentioned, is to inject fuel, which comes from the fuel pump, into the intake manifold of your car engine.
As you can see, the fuel system plays a pivotal role in your car. However, you need to understand that the system isn’t without its issues. Some of its components, especially the injector, fuel pump, and filter, can get dirty and clog up if care isn’t taken.
Here’s where the need to use a good cleaner comes in handy. Depending on the part of the system that you’re looking to clean, the fuel system cleaner and the fuel injector cleaner are two different chemicals that you can use.
What is a fuel system cleaner?
As earlier mentioned, the fuel system cleaner is one of the chemicals that you can rely on to clean your fuel system’s components, such as the pump, filter, and injector or carburetor. This product ensures that your car’s fuel system will remain in good working conditions at all times.
Furthermore, a fuel system cleaner offers tons of benefits to your car. Let’s have a quick look at some of them below.
One of the benefits of using the fuel system cleaner is that it helps to maximize fuel economy. Here’s the thing; the fuel system components, especially the injectors, have fine tolerances in the pintles. Unfortunately, over time, these tolerances tend to become dirty.
As you already know, the injectors are designed to spray fuel into the engine. However, if the tolerances become dirty or clogged up, it will affect the spray pattern of the system. If this happens, it’ll certainly have a big impact on the car’s power and fuel economy. That’s why you need to use a fuel system cleaner regularly to remove the dirt and maximize your car’s fuel economy.
Apart from maximizing your fuel economy, fuel system cleaners will also protect your car engine from rust and corrosion. That’s not all; it’ll also reduce friction and wear, eliminate hard starts, and provide your car with improved engine performance.
What is a fuel injector cleaner?
A fuel injector cleaner is a type of chemical that helps to break up harmful deposits and prevent further build-up of hydrocarbons in your fuel injection system. If used correctly, fuel injector cleaners can offer you tons of amazing benefits.
Here’s how the fuel injector cleaner works; pour the chemical inside an almost empty fuel tank. The chemical doesn’t work immediately. After pouring it inside the empty tank, you will have to fill up the tank at the gas station.
After that, you’ll have to drive your car for several hundred miles or leave it idle until the gas is emptied. How fast the fuel injector cleaner will work depends on the type of product and the amount of fuel needed.
That said, let’s have a quick look at some of what the fuel injector cleaner will do to your car below:
- First, the cleaner or chemical will flow down to your injector system. From there, it’ll dissolve every solid substance that has already built up in the system.
- Apart from that, the work of the fuel injector system also includes helping you prevent further build-up of hydrocarbons and other toxic deposits.
- The chemical will most likely help you clear the clogged in your vehicle’s fuel injector.
- Overall, you’ll achieve a better fuel economy and a healthy fuel system.
Fuel system cleaner vs fuel injector cleaner
Often, people use the terms “fuel system cleaner” and “fuel injector cleaner” interchangeably. But here’s a quick question, are there any differences between the two chemicals?
Yes, there’s a slight difference between the fuel injector cleaner and the fuel system cleaner. The former is designed specifically to handle the build-ups of harmful deposits in the fuel injection system. On the other hand, the fuel system cleaner can be used to clean hydrocarbon deposits in the entire fuel system, including the fuel pump, fuel filter, and even the fuel injector or carburetor.
That said, it’s safe to say that the addition of the fuel system cleaner to your car will certainly help you clean your fuel injection system.