i'm coming up on 60k and i think it's time to get my fuel injectors cleaned. what exactly is involved in that and what's the going rate for something like that? a random mechanic from the phone book quoted me 80 and jiffy lube wants something like 150.

 

don't do it for $150... my dealer does them for $114 already. I saw a local ad here in L.A. for $59.95, that's the cheapest i've seen it

 

Yeah I would like to know what ACTUALLY is involved since I do most of the work myself.

Dixit

 

I'm not sure exactly, the service guy gave me a brochure on it when I declined... he told me I was making a big mistake. My friend's dad is a mechanic and he said that I shouldn't worry about it too much if as long as I do regular maintenance on the car. Supposedly the dealer cleans out everything thorough and applies special chemicals to clean the deposits that build up inside.. yada yada...

it's suppose to be better than just pouring a bottle of fuel injection cleaner into a tank of gas.

 

I have seen two and read of a third method for cleaning injectors(besides pouring in a bottle of injector cleaner at every oil change which we all do).

1: One, a three step process, The mechanic removes the air cleaner, exposing the TB opening. Then he removes the vacuum hose from the brake vacuum booster and attaches a line to a bottle of cleaner. When he starts the engine the cleaner will be metered through the vacuum line and simultaneously the mechanic sprays throttle body cleaner in the throttle body. At the end, the mechanic dumps a bottle of cleaner in the gas tank. This is quite effective at cleaning deposits out of the TB, combustion chamber and valves but no more effective at cleaning injectors than what we can already do because the high concentration of cleaner never passes through the injectors, only the stuff dumped in the tank.

A variation on this is the mechanic removes the spark plugs and dumps 2-3 tablespoons of cleaner in each CC, then cranks the engine to deposit it all over the chamber and valves. Leaves it overnight to soak, sometimes with a cleaner soaked cotton rope inserted into each chamber to keep it moist. The next day, he has to dry out the chamber so the engine won't hydro-lock, then concludes the cleaning as above. Change oil after completed. This is a good remedy for engines with bad CC and valve deposits.

2. The mechanic disconnects fuel lines (both supply and return) and attaches them to his machine. He disables the fuel pump and starts the car, feeding his cleaner through the injectors instead of fuel. This seems effective at cleaning injectors but I don't know how effective at cleaning CC and valve deposits as the formulation of the cleaner is optimum for cleaning injectors. He might do this in combination with #1 above for good CC deposit cleaning.

3. The best.. remove the injectors, disassemble and clean them off the engine. With proper equipment they can check the spray pattern, volume and every thing this way. On 4-cyl's, this is quite viable as injectors are frequently easy to remove. I don't know how easy on our Max's, though; haven't looked at it.

And of course there may be others, and endless variations on these. Best to make sure which method your looking at when asking prices as that can help understand differences. FWIW, I think the most common problem affecting engine performance is CC and valve deposits, not dirty injectors.

BuddyWh