Terraclean Direct Injection Cleaning Service - Any Good

[Napastar]

Conscious of the problem of carbon build up with most Direct Injection petrol engines, I'm considering trying Terraclean's service mentioned above.  According to they website its provides an effective solution to the problem for less than £100. Being a bit of a cynic, I'm wary of such "miracle" claims etc. 

 

Has anyone any experience with it and if so how effective was it and were their any issues

 

 

[Ootohere]

Does your car have the issue?

?

How many miles done?

 

IMO,

Save money by buying E5 petrol and driving your car and giving it nice up to temperature runs, replace plugs and filter and run it for many miles / years.

 

 

 

 

Edited 24 July, 2022 by roottoot

[rum4mo]

 

I've never seen mention in anything about Terraclean that confirms that they also remove the inlet manifold etc and blast the inlet area of the cylinder head with crushed walnut shells to ALSO clean up the area that most needs it.

 

So no, not worth doing it - unless they confirm in writing that they also walnut shell blast the area around the inlet valves.

[ApertureS]

Terraclean and Carbon Clean are the biggest con ever.

 

Plain and simple as that. They are both the same thing under different names and the 'science' behind them is very nondescript. Basically it generally involves pumping hydrogen and oxygen into your intake (often a mist of water) and its supposed to dislodge carbon and such from intakes and valves and also unclog dpf filters. 

Ill tell you first hand, when ive taken an inlet manifold or head off to decoke the head/manifold, I use things a lot stronger than water including brake cleaner, parts washer, pressure washer, fire (if its a cast manifold) and even then it hardly touches the stuff, a screwdriver and mechanical movement is required to actually remove carbon. 

Regarding cleaning out a DPF, well, to remove the soot from a DPF it needs to burnt off at temperatures well above 500 degrees and this is achieved through additional fuel injection at certain combustion phases and a lot of electrickery to get the dpf up to these high temps - So tell me how adding water/hydrogen is going to bring temperatures up this high when water generally is used to cool things down.

 

Along side this they generally say it will clean out your injectors - This normally involves one of 2 things, either they throw a bottle of injector 'cleaner' in the tank or they take the pump feed line off and put their own mixture of fuel and additive in. Either way, if your injectors are that blocked they need a clean, you have bigger problems.

 

Of course there are small variations to each setup that the con men use but it basically boils down to the same as putting fuel saving magnets on your fuel lines - waste of money and time.

 

 

So now ive generalized, Lets be more specific - What is the actual problem youre having with your car that Terraclean recommend their services for?

 

 

If youre worried about carbon build up on your manifold, runners and valves then there are 2 things id recommend;

First thing is youre looking for a decoking service, not a carbon clean.

Second, once youve found someone that does it, they may offer a boroscope check involving a tiny camera into the manifold to check the rear of the valves and the inlet runners - If they deem the carbon to be a problem they will physically remove the inlet manifold and carry out a walnut blast involving firing crushed walnut shells at the carbon to completely break it down.

 

 

 

 

EDIT: Something else id like to add if youre going based on reviews - Youll notice tonnes of 5* reviews, A lot of them saying amazing friendly person, done an amazing job and the light went out on my car straight away, a lot of reviews are like this.

Ill explain why, of course theyre a friendly person as theyre taking your cash for doing nothing and regarding the eml light going out, if you have a lean mixture/egr flow/dpf code excetera, and they clear these codes after carrying out their 'work' you have something called "obd readiness monitor" this is also reset when the codes are cleared and how this works is, it will monitor all the emissions systems on the engine and only once its completed its reset checks will it actually start to monitor and throw fault codes for anything it finds with its monitoring - Now the crux, for the system to carry out its checks on all these individual systems each system can take from between 5 miles and 60 miles when driven in the right conditions. So youre all happy your car is back and the light is out, 60 miles later when the system reactivates you get the light come back on and by that point youve already said youre happy with their service. 

 

I think im done with my rant now

 

Edited 24 July, 2022 by ApertureS

[Napastar]

Thanks for the replies chaps.

 

Currently no problems with the car so was considering it as preventative maintenance - my son's car is a Nov 2017 1.0 TSI with 37k miles which I understand doesn't have the benefit of dual injection in the intake manifold to help reduce carbon build up as my wife's Polo GTI has. Terraclean's service doesn't involve any mechanical intervention in the way a good old fashioned de coke does but involves running some kind of carbon removing "potion" at high pressure into the induction system hence my initial scepticism.

 

From your replies I gather none of you are Terraclean Franchise owners 😂

[Breezy_Pete]

None so far, watch out for someone whose first post is in this thread and says something along the lines of " Have any of you doubters actually tried it? I have and it really works!"

That'll be a franchise owner...😁

[Ootohere]

@Napastareven though the car is only 5 years old and 37,000 miles the Skoda / VW service recommendation on the spark plug change is at 4 years / 40,000 miles so that is where i would put money into the servicing spending in the not too distant future.

Have a look about the bores at that time maybe. 

[Napastar]

I'm hoping the plugs have been done as its just had its 5th Service done 3 days before we picked the car up (all done a Skoda dealers). The suggestion of using a borescope is a good one as a good friend of mine has one

[Ootohere]

A Service History should show the history, if no invoices or online record of plugs being changed i would not assume they were replaced.

Worth looking at the top of them and see if there is a new look to them. 

?

Have you looked in the Air box to see what the air filter looks like and if nice and clean?

?

Was the Brake fluid changed at 3 years or now at 5 years for the 1st time?

It should at least be tested. 

 

It is Guidance / Recommendations and no guarantee that a FMDSH has had servicing done to the recommendations.

Edited 24 July, 2022 by roottoot

[bigjohn]

7 hours ago, Napastar said:

Conscious of the problem of carbon build up with most Direct Injection petrol engines, I'm considering trying Terraclean's service mentioned above.  According to they website its provides an effective solution to the problem for less than £100. Being a bit of a cynic, I'm wary of such "miracle" claims etc. 

 

Has anyone any experience with it and if so how effective was it and were their any issues

 

 

 

I have no personal experience re Terraclean as the 1.4tsi EA111 direct injection engine as fitted to my 2014 Skoda Superb  is still running like it was was when I bought it nearly new.  Now about 105,000 miles. Still did 48mpg on a journey from Manchester to Cheltenham. It may have carbon in there but clearly not as yet affecting it's performance so I'll leave alone!

 

However a friend of mine that bought a Jag XK8 that was not a happy runner had the Terraclean treatment and it rather did the trick. Said same car then went on to give a few years high mileage service. Probably not direct injection though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 24 July, 2022 by bigjohn