Premium gas/techron test

I am a placebo sensitive person when it comes to my truck. I like my sugar pills and snake oils, expensive habit but better than raging alcoholism I suppose.

So recently I just ran a little test on my 2012 V6 with 57k miles when I noticed the engine was getting a little bit shaky during the usual 14 to 1500 RPM rev it does at start up. Every time I start my truck I turn the key to let the power on for a few seconds and then after start up I let it run for about 20 seconds before putting it into gear or until the RPMs start to drop. Its overkill. I noticed it was really vibrating heavier than usual for many weeks, and just running rougher than before while driving, downshifting oddly, and shifting hard.

So before i cleaned my throttle body and MAF sensor. i thought id try premium and a fuel cleaner and see what happened
Here are the test results I thought I would share on here regarding oil change premium gas and fuel cleaners I got the idea from other posts.

One month back I had my girl friend fill up my truck for the last 4 fill ups and bought a bottle of techron and told her to put it in in any of the fill ups. I decided we would go to chevron for all five and told her to pick either unleaded or premium and not tell me which was picked or when she put in the fuel treatment. She wrote down what she picked, i wrote down what I noticed about it running.

Results:

First fill-up: (Unleaded)
no change, shaky at start up, still running rough.

2nd fill-up-(still unleaded techron added) exactly the same. No noticeable change.

3rd fill up: (again unleaded) truck noticeably smoother at start up. But still shifting slightly hard, down shifting funny. I begin to consider a tranny drain/fill. But happy about smooth start-up, i begin to think she filled with premium.

4th fill-up: (premium) completely smooth startup, absolutely no "lunge" feeling when it cranks, shifting improvement. Still down shifts on hills occasionally, but shifting from 1 to 2 is not nearly as hard as its been.

I changed the oil after running seafoam in the oil but i didnt notice any more improvements.

I wish that i had chosen to leave the premium out to see if there was a difference from just the techron treatment, then done a separate test with premium gas but overall im convinced the premium was the primary cause for the improvement though one could argue either or both were responsible. Either way im happy with the results and couldn't wait to post it and let yall decide for yourself or hear any input you may think of.


By the way i do not work for chevron lol, i chose that because of reading other posts and at another forum i found other people claiming to stay wih chevron or shell, chevrons closer to me.

Thanks

 

2012 with only 60k and it was idling poor?

Plugs, pcv, hoses, anything else done?

06 has 102,000 and idles fine

60k is time for 2nd set of plugs anyhow... 30min job

 

As for shifting.... besides a fluid change, disconnecting the neg side of the battery for 20min or so helps if automatic.
Makes it relearn your habits.

 

The first problem is you had someone else touch your truck.

 

This is why I come on here

Yeah I actually bought it at five years old and 31,000 miles one year ago it kills me that I put 30,000 on it in one year but I drive a lot of highway for work

When i got it used I cleaned the throttlebody and MAF sensor swapped the plugs and put a KN filter in which I am regretting because I don't trust it

I've been filling it up with cheap Exxon gas primarily too
But yes I'm going to be swapping out the densos on the first nice day I have and May try my hand at the trans fluid change we'll see
No other work has been done

 

I think I will try the battery disconnect

Anybody else get nervous changing their own plugs but still not nearly as nervous as letting somebody else do it?

 

Do the plugs yourself- it's super easy and doesn't take long. Lots of threads with how to's. Cheers

 

I actually have had questions about since the dirst time i did it, im always apprehensive that im going to under torque or over torque after putting anti seize on them.
Do you know how much torque you lose using an extension if any at all?

 

I was always under the impression that you lose with an extension.. An engineer at work told me otherwise, you don't lose. But I have't looked into it to be honest.

 

Exxon and Chevron are both top tier rated fuels. I used to run Chevron but now the last few months Exxon with no issues.

 

07 with 107 idles horrible, makes a weird vibration at 1800-1900 rpm, almost like a broken engine mount, squeals like a pig early in the morning, maybe bad drive belt, leaks from timing chain cover pretty badly, unknown coolant leak because I have absolutely no fluid in the resi at all. Were all different
I NEED TO WORK ON MY TRUCK
Oh and now time to replace blower motor resistor and harness with plug, cause it’s blown as well.
Subbed for more testing on this higher octane thread.

 

When does winter gas go away?

 

I did a bit of asking around and found that the extension is negligible- torque is so low on the plugs that I didn't worry about it. Cheers

 

Yeah, sometimes u cant get around extensions and swivels.
Havent stripped anything yet

 

Hope you dont have a head gasket issue. My 05's coolant was disappearing with no trace, no codes, found out it was leaking into a single cylinder for years and the entire lower end was rusted. Apparently more common in the 05's than toyota will admit.

 

Great news, generations before us probably laugh that we do anything beyond hand tight + quarter turn.

 

Ethanol free gas = truck runs like a dream.

 

Fuel additives and cleaners work!!! The only difference between tier 1 gasoline’s are the additives. Almost all gas stations sell tier 1 gas. They pump the exact same gasoline at Chevron, Shell, Arco and all the other gas stations, the only difference between them are the additives. Some cars run better on different gasoline’s because they like the additives. I’m not talking octane here, that is a whole different discussion.
Even though gas has additives already, adding a bottle of fuel cleaner/additives to your tank periodically can improve both performance and gas mileage. It cleans your fuel injectors and valves and cleans and lubricates other parts of your engine. I have researched this subject extensively and in addition have a friend who is a chemist in the automotive products industry and is an expert in the area and have discussed the subject with him.
Here’s one small bit of advice. Look for an additive with high percent of PEA (polyetheramine). This is probably the number one detergent cleaning agent available. Techron additive uses a high percent of PEA but there are other equally good additive cleaners with PEA.
I add a fuel additive to my tank every oil change. It can’t hurt and its cheap insurance.

 

I believe june...unfortunately

 

Love it, ive somewhat obsessively done some reading on it as well and heard similar. Also heard redline was high PEA as well but ive yet to find a source that has done any testing on the various different brands since so many are proprietary.

It sounds rediculous to some people but i enjoy improving my truck. When im planning to run my vehicle for X00,000 miles staying ahead of build up makes sense.

As for premium, seems like $7 more per fill-up could be worth it