I’m a sucker for Wheeler dealers and whilst I accept that in reality they never make a penny (as Ed’s labour would cripple all of their sales figures!) I like to see what they do to the cars with a view that I may find some of it useful down the line with our car.
Last night I watched the XK8 episode and was intrigued by the carbon cleaning they did on the engine. £75 supposedly and cleaned out the enigine reducing emmissions and I’m guessing a good clean out would help with the running and efficiency and power the engine can put out. Just wondering if anyone has any experience of it before I spend time looking round the web for people who offer the service and will obviously cover there sites in marketing spin?
The old trick was to pour a couple of teaspoons full of Redex [upper cylinder lube] into the carbs, fast tickover so the engine doesn’t stall. Then hope you are not upwind from the neighbours washing on the line [how do I know this…don’t ask] I guess today you can by the stuff as an aditive. Correction, they have stopped making the stuff, maybe use the petrol additive, cleans up the valves apparently
Beyond a certain point, any excess carbon gets farted out of the exhaust. This isn’t an old car with a flathead or a bathtub head, and there aren’t as many places carbon can hide. I’ve never heard of a modern car needing a decoke.
De coking was something done in the old days with leaded fuel, never had to do that for 30 odd years, I did put an oil additve in the FTO as well as the tiptronic gearbox and it was fine but come MOT time a couple of gallons of shells finest v-power or what ever they call it, and a thrash down the mway always sorted the emissions. I also add diesel additive once a year to the skoda as I do a lot of city centre stop and go.
A proper decoke was head off grinding and skimming messy 'orrible old job!
The best de-coke or Italian Tune-up I ever did was on a borrowed Volvo XC90 when we took a triple axle trailer some 1200miles to Scotland, I dint think it had ever been on full boost for so long in its life, the owner was totally over the moon with how its performance and MPG had improved when they had it back - everyone was happy
Run on a couple full tanks of premium fuel like BP Ultimate, they have enough additives to clean the engine, and drive it like an MX5 was designed to be driven.
Forget anything like RedX, get the oil changed and avoid engine flush which will cause more problems than it solves.
My 91 Roadster benefited profoundly with a full tank treatment of Silkolene ProBoost;. There’s no real benefit to the MX5 in raising octane; Pro-Boost contains toluene, which is also a pretty good solvent. One treatment gives the pipes a good clean, there is no need for repeat treatment.
Give it the beans
so that’s unanimous then 
