It goes without saying that the purchase of a vehicle is one of the heaviest investments one can make in life, more so in Malaysia and Singapore where car prices are significantly higher than other parts of the world so many of us take extra care in maintaining it properly. Keeping to the recommended service schedule, changing wear & tear items when required, even sending it to car spas to do coatings on the paint. To some of us, we pamper our cars more than we do to ourselves.
Yet over time despite all the care and love, there is one malady that will afflict all vehicles. An ailment that will cause higher fuel consumption, unstable and strange vibrations during idling and the engine behaving like our bank accounts chained to debt. It’s not a question of “if” but “when” it would happen & this is a problem that many of us live with & accepts it as part of owning an old(er) vehicle.
That problem is carbon deposit build up.
What is that?
Picture from autotechwestislip
Combustion engines operate by combining fuel mixed with air (or oxygen to be specific) & exposed to high temperature to cause an explosion within the combustion chamber. The force of that explosion pushes the piston which then generates rotational forces that moves the vehicle.
The problem with this technology is that there will always be residue or deposits after the explosion & over time, these deposits would accumulate and disrupt the combustion process which results in the symptoms highlighted above. And since we’ve been driving the same vehicle for some time, our minds subconsciously tune our driving experience to accept the decrease in performance to the point where we don’t even realize we have a problem.
It’s only apparent when;-
- Your frequency in refueling has increased due to shorter distances with each tank
- The engine starts acting like it swallowed a bird
Who’s Affected?
Except for full Electric Vehicles, ALL vehicles are affected. This means if you drive a vehicle that need to visit a fuel station to pump either diesel or petrol, you will suffer from carbon deposit build-up over time.
That said, there are some vehicles that are more susceptible to carbon build-up. For instance, it is more prevalent in direct injection engines (lots of continental makes offer this). ‘
Surprisingly, hybrid vehicles also have relatively high carbon build-up and it also applies to vehicles with auto engine start/stop. It appears that as the vehicle goes through repeated cycles of its engine shutting off & starting up again, the combustion process is constantly affected.
How do we fix that?
The most common option is to use chemicals to clean the chamber and injectors, done either as fuel additives or through a machine. Fuel additives, though simple in application has the poorest result, requiring multiple applications & even then there’s no guarantee. Using machines to spray cleaning agents directly into the intakes are a lot more effective and results may vary depending on the severity of the carbon build-up. In some vehicles, the chemicals may trigger false errors in sensors but these alerts are usually temporary. To check the efficacy of the cleaning, workshops may perform before/after dyno test to show the increase in performance. When I had a Skoda Octavia with its 2.0litre FSI direct injection engine, I did such cleaning & there was an immediate difference but wasn’t that significant. Either there wasn’t that much carbon or the cleaning was not that effective. No way to know then.
The surest way to clean is to employ the services of a competent mechanic to open the top of your engine and clean all combustion related components manually. Although this is the most effective, finding said mechanic & parting with the with the necessary time and money needed to complete the job is another issue. Therefore many won’t take this route unless there are some components needed to be replaced anyway so might as well.
Which brings me to a new engine cleaning technology I recently came across.
Disclaimer; The folks at NEUTO and Quick-Save Auto Boutique invited me to send one of my cars to experience the NEUTO Smart Hydrogen Dry Cleaning System. Since my Sorento is relatively new, the 7-year old Golf is perfect to test the efficacy of this system.
How does it work?
Essentially it’s a machine that uses dry hydrogen gas instead of chemicals to remove the carbon deposits. Hydrogen is one part of the hydrocarbon molecules present in carbon fuel and has higher heat capacity than carbon atom. When hydrogen gas enters the car engine compartment via vacuum inlet manifolds, it chemically reacts with the carbon deposits to form hydrocarbons such as Methane gas (CH4). Hydrogen reverses the carbonization process and improves the combustion efficiency close to perfection. The end products of the complete combustion are carbon dioxide and water vapor.
In other words unlike chemicals that works like detergents on stained clothes, NEUTO binds with those deposits and changes its composition so that it can be burned off again.
Sounds good but kensomuse being a skeptic, what evidence is there that this isn’t a snake oil scam?
Well, this is where NEUTO stands out different compared to other cleaning systems; it does 4 things at once; DIAGNOSE, PRESCRIBE, MONITOR and CLEAN
Here’s what happens;-
1.Diagnose
Emission Gas Analysis (EGA) resembles blood test to cars. With built-in emission gas analyzer, NEUTO™ assesses the exhaust gas compound to diagnose your car health.
2.Prescribe
Based on the EGA results, NEUTO™ calibrates and prescribes the right amount of hydrogen gas suitable for your car.
3.Dry Cleaning
NEUTO™ dry cleans your internal combustion engine at hard-to-reach places like air manifolds, air valves, air inlets and spark plugs where only hydrogen gas can reach.
4.Monitor
NEUTO™ uses world first patented iEGA Technology to continuously monitor the car reaction and response to Dry Hydrogen Auto Therapy™ within a closed-loop feedback system and automatically adjusts the required amount of dry hydrogen gas.
5.Cloud
Full graphical data report of NEUTO™ THERAPY™ is automatically filed onto an online cloud system for easy reference and historical event investigation.
6.Revitalize
After using NEUTO™ Dry Hydrogen Auto Therapy™, your car engine is now cleansed and revitalized.
The whole process takes about 30 minutes to complete.
The result
A report is generated after each treatment. Here’s my score before and after;-
Pay attention to the EXHAUST GAS DATA STATISTICS as it shows the before and after readings. In case you missed the explanation what those numbers mean, here there are;-
HydrocarbonThis is the indication of unburnt fuel, the higher this value, the more fuel wastage. The figure should not exceed 200 ppm.
Carbon MonoxideThis is the indication of partially burnt fuel. It is toxic to humans and animals. The figure should not exceed 2%.
Carbon DioxideThis is created as a result to minimize CO & HC. The normal range is between 13.5% to 16%.
OxygenThis is the indication of excess air in the air-fuel mixture. A properly maintained vehichle should have an excess O2 level of below 2%.
Air Fuel RatioThis is the ratio to indicate whether all fuel is burnt with no excess air. The ideal range is between 14.3 to 15.1.
LambdaThis is the ratio of actual Air-Fuel Ratio (AFR) to stoichiometric, and the ideal figure is 0.97 to 1.03.
So in my 7-year old Golf that has not done any fuel treatment before, my HC and CO reading is within good limits, CO2 and O2 could be better and the AFR and Lambda needs attention.
After the treatment, all are within the parameters of a healthy vehicle.
NEUTO claims a number of benefits. Let’s see how the treatment benefited my Golf;-
1) Smoother cold starts – Never had much of a problem in the 1st place (as long as battery working fine) so not noticeable
2) Eliminate rough idling – The only time I had rough idling was when my piston rings cracked & now that it’s fixed, the treatment does not produce noticeable difference.
3) More responsive engine – DEFINITELY! Immediately after taking it out, I could feel a drastic improvement. The engine feels lighter and where power delivery wasn’t smooth when transitioning from low to higher speeds, the issue is no longer apparent
4) Reduces engine noise & vibration – Once I’ve changed my engine mounting a year ago, noise & vibration has been eliminated so this isn’t felt in the Golf.
5) Improve horsepower – YES! It certainly feels more powerful but without dyno testing, we cannot produce concrete evidence
6) Restores fuel efficiency – I average around 500-550km per full tank. Still not depleted the same tank when the treatment is done but the fuel estimate seems to point to around 600km range when I refueled so that’s about 10% increase (in theory). Will need to continue to monitor this.
7) Maximizes vehicle performance – With greater acceleration and a more responsive pedal, I’m completely smitten by my Golf again!
8) Reduces harmful emissions – From the report generated after the treatment, it seems so.
Summary
So NEUTO is a system that does multiple things at the same time because the vehicle emission reading is what adjusts the output of the hydrogen. You cannot opt to just do a emission reading without the cleaning because both happen the same time.
Furthermore, if there are anomalies that is beyond what is commonly limited to a regular combustion process (ie some parts are faulty/not working well), the OBD system will then be deployed to determine where the mechanics should focus their attention on (ie a leak somewhere).
The system is NOT suitable for the following vehicles because the emission parameters has been modified to out-of-factory specifications;-
- Modified vehicles
- Re-tuned vehicles (either manually or with a piggyback system)
All in all, the gains I experienced with the treatment leads me to highly recommend this for all vehicles, especially if;-
- Your vehicle is 5-years or older
- It has a direct injection engine
- It is a hybrid vehicle
- It has a Engine Start/Stop system
Even if you’re not into the performance improvement, the claimed fuel savings of 10-20% makes a lot of economic sense. My only regret in completing this article was not getting a dyno done beforehand but overall, I am satisfied with the results. Bear in mind that I approached this with extreme skepticism since we’re not new to workshops promising the moon & the stars for their services. It also helped that I had experience with chemical cleaning before, albeit in another car model so I had a clearer idea what to expect.
So give it a try if you have a vehicle that fits the above criteria. Prices range from RM350 to RM400 for vehicles below 3.0cc and RM550 for engine capacities above 3.0cc.
For more information refer to the links below;-
https://www.facebook.com/NeutoTherapy/
https://www.facebook.com/quicksave2u/
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2 Comments
Where is the shop located? Aren’t there going to be any side effect/damage to any sensor related to the engine of the car?
I did it at Quicksave for my 12 years old 8th gen Civic FD 2.0, definitely can feel engine is smoother and less vibration, Fuel consumption improve about 5 to 10%