unit91

I've read the hype on the internet, now I want to know your experiences with Sea Foam. Good stuff or snake oil? What improvements, if any, did you experience?

bluemustang1966

Depends on what you want to do it. My experience with it is as follows.

My wifes car before we got married sat alot because she was in Chicago for undergrad and her family would not drive it for months at a time. After we got engaged since I lived close to her family I drove it every other week. So, it needed a tuneup and I got some seafoam to clean out the engine after the oil change I did was unsatisfactory; felt like more oil should have come out and it had gunk in it. I put half a bottle in, drove it 500 miles with new oil. When it came it out, you would have thought I drove 5000 miles. Incredible cleaning ability to get gunk out of old/sitting engines.

That being said, I had a friend do it in his car, but he ran a 2 or 3000 miles with it in there and then had gasket issues a few months later ending in replacing the head gaskets on his car. So when I use it I try not to run it very long.

I have never run it as a fuel additive for cleaning the fuel system, but I've heard it works pretty well.

Hope this helps, my experience is just to be careful with it.

unit91

Appreciate the input!

andrewmp6

When i buy a used car that's probably not been taken care if i use sea foam and it does help.If its smoking or knocking rislone engine treatment will straighten it right out.

unit91

juts had engine rebuilt. co-worker told me that sea foam is good to use in gas because it decreases the "bad effects" that ethanol in the gas produces. ever heard that?

bluemustang1966

I could be wrong but if you're just running normal gas with 10% ethanol you don't have much to worry about from the 'bad effects'. If any do show it will be a long time. Run some fuel system cleaner through it and you'll probably never notice an issue.

I can't say anything for my Mustang as it isn't drivable yet, but for my other cars I generally run one bottle of fuel system cleaner every couple oil changes. Primarily because I have a 96 outback that loves to chew up fuel filters if I don't, and at 25 bucks a pop, it gets expensive to replace them a couple times a year. I do it in my other cars just for good measure and I have never had trouble with my cars, or my truck, running or starting.

So my suggestion is just get STP fuel treatment or something like that, Sea Foam costs way too much to do the same thing. Usually can get fuel treatment on sale 2 for 5 or sometimes less.

unit91

Thanks.

nba1341

A little off topic but anyone notice how all those fuel treatment products magically got bottles that are half the size yet they are the same price... I saw one say "Super Concentrated" but I just see it as a way to sell half the amount for the same price. Or maybe they were regulated to do so because every single company has the same small tiny bottle now I was tripping out at Wallace World.

Anyways I used sea foam on the crown vic I bought with 175,000 miles and it helped tremendously. That along with a general tune up and such but def idled smoother and no longer was in fear of breaking down at any moment.

kalli

i am not sure about that sea foam business. this stuff is not allowed in any other contries. so either it doesn't work at all or it kills all the birds in a one mile radius. either/or