Ethanol Flushing with Flex Fuel

[shibles]

So last time I went to the dealer (25k miles) for regular maintenance after taking a drive to Florida and for preparation for another Florida drive (I don't really have time to regularly rotate tires, change oil and filter, etc during the semester), they suggested an ethanol flush to keep the injectors clean. I had just installed a DIY flex fuel kit and asked if it'd mess with the sensor and they said not at all.

My question is: now that I'm running more ethanol (30-40% with TSP stage 2 tune) than typical 7-10% from 93 premium, should I look into performing this "ethanol flush" more regularly to keep the injectors clean and working properly?

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[JT Si]

If you're using top tier fuel and not low detergent stuff that may be dirty from generic or low volume gas stations you should be fine.

I'd only worry about it if I had some symptoms that pointed to an injector issue.

Especially at only 25k, they're just trying to upsell you some unnecessary services.

Also if you're running higher ethanol content, you're continuously giving your injectors an ethanol flush. Heck, the E10 most places have is giving your car an ethanol flush.

 

[shibles]

Ah so the flush uses ethanol to clean them? I might've misunderstood then because I assumed ethanol causes build-up that needed to be cleaned, so they used something else to flush out that build-up.

 

[JT Si]

Ah so the flush uses ethanol to clean them? I might've misunderstood then because I assumed ethanol causes build-up that needed to be cleaned, so they used something else to flush out that build-up.

Ethanol is both the cause of and solution to injector cleaning issues. To quote injectorrepair.com:

Ethanol’s Fuel System Cleaning Problem;



The Ethanol in E10, E15, and E85 is a serious solvent / degreaser / cleaner. Ethanol scours and scrubs varnish, gum, sludge and dirt deposits out of a fuel system. The deposits will be “held” in suspension in the Ethanol fuel and will eventually wind up in the fuel filter / main jet / fuel injectors, and can choke off an engine’s fuel supply. This cleaning effect will normally not be a problem, and will keep every fuel system component nice and clean. That is, until you get one or more bad tanks of fuel from a service station that has had a bad load of fuel delivered, or that does not take maintenance seriously by changing the pump filters regularly. Before the use of ethanol, most of the gunk would sit on the bottom of your gas tank forever and adhere to the varnish / deposits in the bottom of the tank. Now, with ethanol, any and all deposits will be lifted into the fuel, held in suspension, and will get to the fuel filter, pump, injectors, micro filter, etc.

There's absolutely zero reason to do some kind of injector cleaning service unless you have symptoms of an injector issue.

You would notice loss of power, misfires, extreme positive fuel trims if you had an issue like this.

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