List Price: $4.99
Sale Price: $4.69
Today's Bonus: 6% Off
This product does bump mpg a couple percentage points, especially on middle aged engines, but the effect wears off when the treatment runs out. The mpg increases aren't a result of your engine getting much cleaner, but due to less friction between the piston and the wall. This is why it is marketed primarily as an "UPPER CYLINDER Lubricant" (UCL). The bottle also claims to help valves seal better, presumably by filling in any small gaps with its oily viscosity. If this or piston/wall gap is way out of spec I doubt this or any other "filler" will help improve compression much.
If there is so much carbon on a valve that is not sealing you'll be better off pouring a dedicated cleaner like Seafoam through the intake. It also helps if your car is burning oil due to carbon-ed up oil control rings. It is doubtful that Lucas UCL will clear major deposits, but perhaps it helps keep deposits away in the first place if used regularly on a healthy, well maintained engine. If your primary goal is keeping deposits out of the engine though, it may be cheaper to Seafoam every 30k miles.
Finally, if your injectors are clogged, particularly with gasoline varnish, your'll probably want a polyetheramine based cleaner in the fuel tank like Chevron Techron/Lucas Regane/Redline SL-1. Shell and hand full gas stations put a smaller dose of Techron in their gasoline, but I like to use a full dose once a year/10k miles. Seafoam also attacks varnish when used in the gas tank, but Techron is especially good at this.
So is it worth putting Lucas UCL every fill up? Maybe, if it increases the mpg enough to pay for itself. Otherwise you can keep your engine and injectors cleaner with a combination of Techron and Seafoam, which don't need to be added at every fill up.
I am trying Lucas UCL to see if it can extend the life of forged 2618 alloy pistons from CP, which wear away very quickly compared to any stock piston. Low silicon forged pistons (< 1% Silicon vs. 12.5%) take time to expand and fill the bore on startup, so some lube should help scraping/wear in the meantime. They are also much softer so they wear at an accelerated rate even once warmed up. For a normal car with cast pistons, they should last hundreds of thousands of miles with regular maintenance, regardless.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
I put 2 bottles of this stuff in my tank the last time I filled up (I have a 32 gallon tank, so one bottle wasn't gonna cut it) and noticed improvements within a day or 2. I know it wasn't the gas cuz I filled up at Walmart. I've used lots of fuel system additives and cleaners and what-have-you and this one is the best by far! Don't be fooled by the more expensive ones and think you're getting what you pay for. Slick50, Gumout, Prestone, Seafoam, etc. are rip offs and make no difference whatsoever. This stuff is cheap AND it works. Buy it.Best Deals for Lucas 10020 Fuel Treatment - 5.25 oz.
Listen folks google Ethanol Damage and see what is going on these days. Our engines are being burnt up due to the ethanol in our gas. You have to use something to help with the drying effect of ethanol. I use a couple things, MMO Techron and this product. Techron is a great cleaner, but does not help lubricate the upper cylinder and this product does. MMO is like between the two products, a decent cleaner and a decent lube. Lucas Upper Cylinder is the "Lube" only, even though it says cleaner it is not. The "cleaner" is a product they use in oil that cleans, but not in the sense as you know what a cleaner is. The cleaner in MMO and Techron are flat out solvents which are very good cleaners. This product has no solvent, and the cleaner is an additive that cleans similar to what calcium does for engine oil. Whether or not you "feel" a difference has nothing to do with your cylinders needing this lube to protect your engine. I actually do feel a difference sometimes in various vehicles, and also I have not felt a difference in others. Some day your engine will be burnt out and you will have wished that you used an upper cylinder lube. Gas has a natural oil lubrication, ethanol does not, and that is why you need to add extra lubricating oil to it. 26 bucks a gallon with free shipping is a no brainier, a gallon lasts me over a year. I buy a small 4 ounce version from the auto parts store and use that to refill with my gallon. The gallon gives you 32 gas tanks worth of treatment.I actually don't like Lucas's product line. Their oil products are junk if you ask me. But this product is the real deal, and whether or not you buy Lucas or another Upper Cylinder Lube, your engine needs these types of products to minimize the damage that ethanol is currently doing to it. Use a cleaner like Techron once every 4 tanks and use a lube in every tank. I've seen newer engines with 25k miles on them that look like burnt out engines that are 40 years old. THIS IS NO JOKE, THE U.S. GOV'T IS GIVING US THE SHAFT BY FORCING US TO BURN ETHANOL IN OUR GAS.
