I'd like to share my recent experience with Auto-RX. I'll try to present this testimonial as briefly as possible, while still providing important information.
In 1997 my father purchased a Taurus with the 3.0 Vulcan OHV engine. He drove it for several years. During that time he loaned it to a friend, who had a mishap with the car. The front right freeze plug burst during her drive. She was near my father's home at the time, and so she continued to drive it home several miles, without any coolant! This happend when the car had approximately 50k miles on it. My dad had it towed to the dealer, which installed a new plug, filled the coolant system and checked pressure, and returned the vehicle. My father continued to drive it for a few more years without incident.
Fast forward to 2005; my father sold the car to me with 60k miles on it. I did the routine 60k maintenance and used it as a daily driver. It always drove fine, and as this engine design was never a high-performance engine, I was content to just drive it and not worry. It recieved routine O/Fci's at 5k intervals under my care. It would regularly consume some oil, but nothing drastic; perhaps a quart in 5k miles.
Fast forward to late 2007. I decided to try some ARX engine treatment. I pulled the front valve cover to visually see what type of contamination was present; very little actually, at all. I had sent some digital pix to Gary Allen and he commented how "clean" the engine seemed. Still - the experiment seemed like the thing to do. I decided to take some compresison readings at Gary's urging.
I was not surprised, but very disappointed, at what I found. Of the six cylinders, #4 and #5 were way down on compression. #4 was at 120 psi, #5 was at 110 psi. The others were all in spec at around 165-180 psi. I noticed that these two cylinders (#4, #5) were adjacent to the freeze plug that had burst several years ago. I chalked up this poor compression to worn rings and/or scored cylinders. But for the sake of the experiment, I forged ahead.
The ARX trial was to see what performance could be achieved by ARX when the dosage was doubled, and the application phase cut short in mileage. In other words, I used two 12oz bottles for a 1k mile application run.
The fundementals were as follows: *1997 Taurus 3.0 Vulcan with 87k miles @ application phase. *PP 5w-30 synthetic, which already had 2k miles on it *AAP "red" filter #3600 (a purolator rebrand)installed *daily driving including a 50/50 mix of city/highway *winter weather conditions typical of Indiana *regular fuel used without any particular brand loyality *vehicle driven with "normal" habits (not too hard or easy).
At 88k miles (on 2-8-08), it was time for the rinse phase and another compression check. The rinse phase oil is QS dino 5w-30 with another AAP filter.
Here is a synopsis of the compression pre-application and post-application, rated in PSI, with an ACTON compression gage. Multiple reading were taken per cylinder to average results, and rounded to the nearest "five" for ease of reading.
I AM ASTOUNDED! As you can see, with no other influence other than the ARX treatment, there was SIGNIFICANT restoration of compression in the two defunct cylinders. Specifically, cylinder #4 gained 50% compression, all the way up to the equivalent of the others. Cylinder 5 gained 40 psi, up from 110 to 150, though not completely up with the others. In fact, ALL cylinders gained, and five of the six are at 180 psi (+/- 2psi in acutal readings)!
It is suspected that the ARX will continue to work it's "magic" on cylinder #5 during the rinse phase, which has just begun. I will take another compression check on #5 at 90k miles, when the vehicle is up for it's next routine maintenance, and the dump of the "rinse" oil.
I cannot stress this enough; I AM AMAZED at the performance of this product. I initially thought I had an engine that might necessitate a tear down. Instead, I have realized a very significant gain in engine compression. It is apparent now that the overheating incident so many miles ago had "coked up" the rings into the piston lands with detrimental varnish and other various buggery. The ARX performed exactly as advertised, freeing up the rings to do their job.
As I had experimented with ARX in the doubling of the dosage, and halving the apllication mileage, I cannot comment what a "normal" application might have done. I suspect that similar results would have been achieved, but just taken more time.
I will keep all posted of the progress of cylinder #5 when the 2k mile rinse phase it completed at 90k miles.
