Six tanks with Techron solved high oil consumption at 140K miles

Each winter, in my CAMRY, not wife's Prius, I end up using a LOT of non-ethanol fuel. We are not far from Seattle, but enough off the major grids that we often will get power outages of a day or two or more.

Not to bore you with all the details, but from Nov. through March, I buy 15 gallons of gas for my Honda generator and I only buy non-ethanol. I keep it a month and then dump whatever might be left into the Camry.

Camry runs smoother and has more power on hills when it is on the no-corn diet. I could see non-ethanol making a difference in other ways, also. It does use oil, but not a heck of a lot, I should probably put it on a non-ethanol diet for a couple of months and see if there is any difference. I already use Chevron gas, pretty much exclusively, except the non-ethanol, which Chevron does not sell.

Guess I could try a few bottles of Techron...

 

Ethanol is known to cause damage to some gasket and neoprene-like materials.

 

Just across the border in Vancouver, maybe the same Seattle: Chevron's highest octane grade has a decal on the pump declaring no ethanol. But seems a very expensive way to get it. Maybe worth trying for one tank. Would extreme octane have any negative ramifications for a car that's ok with regular??

 

I just checked my 2006 daily driver...the oil burning has gotten worse, it's closer to 1qt 700 miles now. right at the threshold level.

So this would be a real test for me......make it or break it test.

 

Hey, Mendel:

I found this on Kelly Blue Book. Seems interesting. Would higher octane be like Sildenafil for engines? For some reason PriusChat has banned the v word -- you know, that drug that sometimes guys need.. so I tried a trick to get it to work.

Totally unrelated, if I get to Vancouver, can you show me around Chinatown? Our family went when I was maybe 8 years old and we went to a terrific, very drab restaurant, big, open, and pretty much everyone around us was Asian. All of them were slurping down their meals, like tipping the bowls up and going for it, which I thought was cool at that time. I remember it was actually part of a multi-story building, but my dad says he doesn't remember the name. Of course, he is getting to the age that he hardly remembers his name.

Well, as usual, I have strayed from topic:

The Truth about Premium Gas | When to Use Higher Octane Gasoline - Kelley Blue Book

No issues with my car yet, but I have 80K. I use my bike a lot and hitch rides along the interstate.

 

If you are ever in San Francisco, try Woey Loy Goey's lower level room. 699 Jackson St San Francisco . Yelp reviews available.
The lower level is a walk down entrance that sounds like the place your family went to in Vancouver.
It's in about the middle of touristy China Towne; lots of locals eat there; cheap and authentic.

 

Local chain store has Techron for a few bucks off this week. I think I will go ahead and dump it in the Camry. I will report back, after six tanks, which may take a few weeks.

 

...one too many Vancouvers and borders over there for me to follow that

 

Well I don't have any oil burning yet, so I thought I would be proactive and poured a large bottle of Techron into my tank this morning, along with Chevron Gas. Did the same to my Honda Civic yesterday! I have used Techron over the years, but never followed a routine. I will now!

 

I managed to miss the octane number, but going from memory, the octane free gas is 94. You can see 91 on the right side.


Vs regular, the 94 is about 25 cents more per litre, say 3-4 dollars more per fill up. Worth a try?

 

congrats! thanks for the update!

 

I was in the middle of this experiment when I sold my 06. After 3 tanks, I didn't see much improvement.

 

Anyone use the six bottles yet and have anything to report, other than the OP.

I may be awhile, I just poured in bottle number two at lunch time today. Noticed no difference so far.

 

I read this thread a couple months ago and decided to take the Techron challenge myself. I have a Gen III though, but noted the same oil use increase when passing the 95K mark as I saw with my Gen II. I started the first treatment around 118K and finished right before my 120K service which included an oil change. It is inherently difficult to accurately measure oil use given the mark-to-mark difference of 1.6 quarts and waiting the appropriate amount of time for drain-down. I tried to control for those inconsistencies. I started "measuring" oil use at 96K and came up with anywhere from 1 quart in 3500 miles up to 9800 miles. This was from late spring through the summer of 2016. My last measurement before the Techron was 1 quart in 3882 miles. I used eleven successive tanks with a full bottle on the first tank and a half bottle for each half tank added after that. Used 6 bottles. That took three weeks (I drive a lot). As I said, I had the oil changed in late October for the 120K service, and a little over 2000 miles has elapsed since then. I just did a measurement and came up with 1 quart in 4010 miles. So, maybe an improvement, maybe not. I will continue to measure and will report any differences.

 

1 qt in 4000 miles, I wouldn't even worry about it

 

On my fifth tank, seems as if there has been an improvement, maybe half better, but this is all wild supposition at this time. Lots of winter weather has been interfering with my concentration, etal. Plus I have been running no ethanol fuel for the past month and a half.

I will know better after the last bottle (tank six) and then a couple of months after that.

BTW, this guy has another solution....

 

My 05 seem to burn nothing the first 2000 miles after change, but by the time it got to 3000 miles, it burned about half a quart. I don't understand it