Having watched 5th Gear restore 5-6 BHP of original to a Corrado's power by cleaning the fuel system, having never used it myself, has anybody used it on their petrol VRS? Did it work and is it ok to use I.e any problems with using it? Mine has 64k and no hesitation up to the redline however if it has lost a few BHP, it seems a very cost-effective way of recovering responsiveness and power.

A hotly debated subject on here!

 

It is mentioned in the manual that you shouldn't use any type of fuel additive but I'm guessing that this is Skoda covering their backs.

 

Personally the petrol vRS, even minus a few horsepower, is still plenty fast enough. If its running well I'd leave well alone.

For a gentler clean you could try a few tanks of the premium fuels like shell Vpower etc. they have more detergents in than the value fuels....

The only thing 5th Gear didn't do was run it for a week on premium fuel and with Plato doing the test I'm very surprised they didn't get Momentum99. Might have got the full BHP

If I'm honest i think people use it more on older cars that need that clean after years of grime build up. Go with the premium fuels for a few weeks....I personally would use Shell or BP premium but some people on here swear by using momentum 99....

I had a discussion with a dealer trained mechanic mate of mine and the general feeling seems to be that the premium fuels like Shell V-Power "may" have the ability to keep the fuel system clean but will not be able to clean a system neglected for a number of years. He also seemed to think that the normal retail fuel system cleaners were not as good as they could be because they cannot be caustic enough to shift the built up grime.

 

My car had done 45000 miles and I only use Tesco Momentum 99 or Shell V-Power. He supplied me with a trade only bottle of fuel system cleaner with the warning "Don't spill it on the bodywork!". One bottle and half a tank of petrol later, the car felt a bit sharper and the fuel consumption reduced by about 8%.

If I'm honest i think people use it more on older cars that need that clean after years of grime build up. Go with the premium fuels for a few weeks....I personally would use Shell or BP premium but some people on here swear by using momentum 99....

 

Thanks to all those who commented. I do run it on Tesco 99 RON fairly regularly. There is no Shell garage for miles and perhaps it is psychological but it seems to go a tiny bit better, as for economy not much better, but then it already runs 37-40 Mpg depending on the type of journey. Thank goodness I don't live in a built up area and my commute is 10 miles of A road with no traffic light and not too much traffic. 

Why not just try a bottle?

Is Skoda seriously suggesting that one small bottle of Redex (or other additive) is really going to knacker the engine? Is the engine made of wafer thin chocolate or something? So you could redline the car all day every day and as long as it's serviced as per the manufacturers schedule then it won't give up .... but add a bit of engine 'cleaner' and 'kaboom'?

Come off it - how about Skoda qualified some of these warnings in the handbook or brought out their own range of additives / engine flush that they could perhaps suggest to use as part of regular servicing?