Terraclean

[onenil]

I have recently bought a E85 2.5l (2003) as my summer/fun car. It is generally in very good condition but I feel it has been a little unloved mechanically the last couple of years.

In the first few weeks I had all of the brake pads replaced (very low and warning lights on), roof drains cleaned, 2 new rear tyres plus the tracking corrected which was all over the shop.

I am thinking about having a Terraclean completed which is meant to clean the engine, improve performance and increase mpg.
Has anyone had it done? I am looking for some honest feedback from people who have had it done.

 

[stevo///m3]

What is terraclean?
Stevo

 

[Autovisiondetailing]

What is terraclean?
Stevo

Terraclean uses a high grade fuel with a electronic current that flushes out all of the carbon build up in the engine right through to the exhaust.

Costs around £125 and takes up to an hour

 

[Grumpyowl]

It was being promoted by Ed China on Wheeler Dealers

 

[Beetlegav]

How strange I've just happened to enquire about booking in for a terraclean this coming Friday. I noticed when I rebuilt my disa valve it was covered in carbon so I think my engine will be much worse. I think it was grannied by the previous owner which hasn't helped

 

[ranski]

Loads of threads on this. The general consensus was 'snakeoil'

 

[mj2k]

Ed China = terraclean & also featured it on wheeler dealers.

Wouldn't bother IMHO

 

[wiseguy]

Flushing fuel lines with fuel... *red flag. I vote snake oil, "current" aside.

 

[onenil]

Thanks all. I saw it on Wheeler Dealers when Ed Terracleaned the Jag but I have read mixed reviews.

I might invest my £125 elsewhere!

 

[GuidoK]

I noticed when I rebuilt my disa valve it was covered in carbon so I think my engine will be much worse. I think it was grannied by the previous owner which hasn't helped

Have you ever taken your manifold off?
Your disa valve is dirty because of the oil vapour from the ccv. That is very normal, everyone's disa is dirty, a bit oily. Mine was too.
But this is generally what your intake valves look like:

Very clean!. That's because there's a big injector squirting gasoline on it all the time. Gasoline is a very good degreaser/cleaner. I don't see how terraclean is going to improve that.
They also advert that it removes carbon buildup. you can only do that with extreme heat, or additives that have a cold shock effect (water) or other detergent like effect like seafoam. It is arguable if these methods are really healty for your engine for example the possibility of getting crud and residue between piston rings, breaking oil film on cilinder walls, excessive emission/temperature change that can damage the cats and other side effects that can harm your engine, and only should be used if there is a serious carbon residue problem imho. Not to use in 'just in case' situations.
Obviously they don't really show the claim that it removes carbon buildup. No engine's here is taken apart or even inspected with a borescope or so...

The terraclean/wheeler dealer movie that shows the difference in emissions is typical for a cold engine and a warm engine (half an hour on terraclean will warm the engine really well ). Everyone who knows a little bit about cars sees that in an instant. But this product doesnt aim at those kind of people

 

[Disca]

Ok so I have recently had my S5 cleaned as it's direct injection and doesn't have the benefit of injectors cleaning the valves. I however did not use Terraclean as I don't want to go near them with a barge pole, instead I went with a new franchise that is growing in popularity. The only reason I did this is one of the well known S5 owners on the A5OC forums actually brought one of the franchises and I trust his reputation around the S5 as his is an absolute monster. The clean was done by http://www.enginecarbonclean.com/ with the technical director for the company and a franchisee (A5OC member) doing the actual clean so I had the opportunity to chat to them about it all. It works by pumping additional hydrogen into the air intake which then burns off the carbon that has built up. It is important to note that the below results vary between all cars, direct injection engines are far more susceptible to carbon buildup. The below is a copy and paste of the summary I posted to the A5OC forums, I did the test as I wanted to prove their method actually was worth the £99 I paid.

In short, it was.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Throughout the entire process the car did not move today. It was strapped down to the dyno for the before run, then cleaned on the dyno and then had the after run. This meant no variance due to changing the strap tension or anything like that. Room was temperature controlled also.

Before run:

Apparently these cars never hit the figures they say they can! Excuse the picture but my phone didn't like capturing the screen as per usual.

After the run we did the clean:

As can be seen in the image, the car did not move off the dyno

After the clean we did the second run, short clip of it below.

Facebook has better compression it seems so this may sound clearer:
https://www.facebook.com/mike.askew.568/videos/10153752489843343/?l=6131842321713812080

and here we are with the final figures:

+21bhp
+20ft-lb across the range
Engine is significantly quieter as other mentioned but still sounds brilliant under load
The pull is alot smoother across the whole range whereas before it pulled noticeably harder after 3k revs

 

[Rob_benton]

What was the mileage on your S5 ?

Thanks

 

[Disca]

56k at the time of the clean, with an unknown history of the engine before 47k when I brought it.

I think it was probably the first clean it had had.

I can honestly say though the effects were very obvious, not even exaggerating here. I did the clean purely to prove it worked as a manual clean of my car is like £700 vs what I can now view as a £99 a year running cost.

I went halves with the company on dyno time costs as they were equally as willing to prove their bits work

 

[GuidoK]

Obviously there has to be something there to clean in the first place. So you have to have a car that is already running below spec because of a problem already there.

 

[Disca]

Well the S5 never felt below spec since I brought it but the FSI engines should be cleaned every 40k miles or so.

Z4 engines won't get anywhere near as much benefit though as you have pointed out about GuidoK, they aren't direct injection.