Before this round of A-Rx, I hesitated in front of the Gunk-brand 5-minute engine clean.
Relax: I couldn't bring myself to do it. I am confident that running a kerosene-proxy through my Passat would somehow tick off the fine engineers in Stuttgart...
That said, are there any other brands worth considering using prior to A-Rx on a reasonably clean motor to get biggest bang for the buck? Or are the "other" cleaners just too darn harsh?
On a related note--and I think someone asked this on BITOG: can I expect A-Rx to remove the varnish on, e.g., my oil cap, or is that asking too much?
Why would you want to use other products that have harsh solvents in them? Varnish will not harm your engine over a period of time using the maintenance dose of ARX will remove it. In my engine the varnish removal was about one year.
Daryl has it right. Something else the public does not understand how does a solvent liquify the contaminant ? or is this unsaid or in small print ? "shock chemistry" will break off pieces of internal engine crud. The manufacture of this thinly disguised paint thinner surely has a disclaimer if something arising fro using this "junk" and it lodges in your oil screen or a piston port . Darsgin i would say your moment of consideration was a smart move.
dbdeland wrote:Why would you want to use other products that have harsh solvents in them?
Slave of marketing, I suppose...
...using the maintenance dose of ARX will remove it. In my engine the varnish removal was about one year. Good to hear it. I have two bottles headed my way: one for cleaning, one for maintenance.
From what I've read on the various forums ARX will quickly clean up the ring packs. The valve cover area clean up is going to take more time. You may still see some results a couple of oil changes after your last ARX cycle.
If your Passat has the 1.8T engine you'll probably want to stick with a VW approved synthetic oil and not exceed 5,000 mile oil change intervals.
Daryl has it right. Something else the public does not understand how does a solvent liquify the contaminant ? or is this unsaid or in small print ? "shock chemistry" will break off pieces of internal engine crud. The manufacture of this thinly disguised paint thinner surely has a disclaimer if something arising fro using this "junk" and it lodges in your oil screen or a piston port . Darsgin i would say your moment of consideration was a smart move.
When Frank says shock cleaners, he means it. I once dipped a dirty injector into a beaker of toluene hoping somehow to magically clean it. Immediately hunks of either carbon or perhaps rubber exploded off the injector into the solution. And they didn't dissolve any further. I used to turn a blind eye to this and hope for the best when I dumped the stuff in my crankcase. My own experiementing, however, showed arx to clean my engine better than this stuff, though.
