Best Fuel Injector Cleaner Reviews: You Should Know

best fuel injector cleaner






Many different fuel injector cleaners exist on the market today, but which ones actually work and which one is the best for your car? 

Here we will discuss some of the things to know when choosing the best fuel injector cleaner for you.

FAQs About Fuel Injectors and What You Need to Know Before Buying Them

Why Clean Fuel Injectors?

The fuel injectors in an engine are the mechanism that handles regulating and distributing the exact amount of fuel that is required for your engine to run at its maximum performance levels.

Over time, fuel deposits can build up around the fuel injectors and cause blockages.

best fuel injector cleaner

Fuel deposits can build up around the fuel injectors like this.

These blockages can negatively impact the engine, throwing off its rate of fuel consumption and causing things like engine stuttering, poor performance, low horsepower, poor fuel efficiency, ignition failure or even complete engine failure.

It takes a fair amount of time for these deposits to build up to a point where it may cause noticeable problems, so this gives us plenty of time to take preventative measures.

If you regularly clean your fuel injectors using fuel injector cleaning solutions, the problem of clogged fuel injectors can be avoided for the full lifespan of the car. This will also increase the overall life expectancy of a vehicle as well.

What are Fuel Injector Cleaners?

best fuel injector cleaner

Fuel injector cleaner.

Fuel injector cleaners are formulas which are sold by the bottle at many gas stations, hardware stores, and automotive shops. The idea behind the fuel injector cleaner is that you pour it in an empty gas tank just before you fill it up with gasoline.

The chemical compounds in the formula work along with the gasoline to break down and remove fuel deposits which form in your gas tank and around the fuel injectors.

Many manufacturers of fuel injector cleaners claim that using their formula will not only help clean the deposits around the fuel injectors but also improve performance, gas mileage and overall efficiency of your engine.

Do Fuel Injector Cleaners Really Work?

When I was younger, my brother found an old gas can while cleaning out the storage shed. The can was filled with old gasoline that had been sitting there for god-knows-how-long. The gas was old, varnished and unfit to be used as fuel.

Being the spendthrift that he is, he did not want to waste the gasoline, so with the best of intentions and the worst of engine knowledge, he poured the gas from the can into my car’s gas tank.

best fuel injector cleaner

Car's gar tank.

I went on a camping trip that night, unaware of what was sitting in my gas tank.You should always to check out your checklist before go to car camping.

The next morning, I found myself in the middle of nature with no cell phone reception and a car that wouldn’t start. It’s lucky that I drive a manual transmission and lucky that some other campers happened to be in the area.

They used their car to push my car to the top of a hill where I could gain enough momentum to do a bump start.

Finally, I was on my way home, but my car was not a happy camper. The engine was loud, stuttering and would stall from time to time.

I thought my engine was destroyed until a friend of mine explained that varnished gasoline could be removed by using fuel injector cleaners.

I took his advice and started adding fuel injector cleaners each time I filled my tank. Instantly, I noticed an improvement in my cars performance.

best fuel injector cleaner

Adding fuel injector cleaner into gas tank.

The gasoline my brother poured into my tank was very old and varnished, so the problem was not fixed overnight, but eventually, my car was back to running as smooth as the day I bought it.

I can tell you from personal experience, fuel injector cleaners work.

Choosing the Best Fuel Injection Cleaner

Fuel injector cleaning solutions rely on chemistry to break up carbon deposits into small particles which can the be passed through the engine’s combustion process or simply washed away with repeated filling and emptying of the gas tank.

While many manufacturers of cleaning solutions boast their own proprietary formula, the main chemical that many of these cleaning solutions use is called polyetheramin, or PEA for short.

This does not mean that the varied formulas do not have a varied result, it simply points out that PEA is a major part of the magic that fuel injector cleaners use.

best fuel injector cleaner

A part of a car fuel system.

A good quality fuel injector will likely include this chemical, but a cheap or poorly made solution will either exclude this chemical from its ingredients or include it at a level that is too diluted to be truly effective.

This is why when choosing the fuel injector cleaner for your car, it is important to stick to reputable companies that have a history of effective products and positive reviews from auto professionals.

Furthermore, there are different solutions which are geared towards different types of problems for various kinds of engines. If you are not sure which solution is most suited to your car's engine, it’s best to ask someone at the automotive store or a trusted mechanic for advice.

To help you in the matter, I have reviewed my top 5 picks for fuel injector cleaners below.

First up, a 6oz bottle of Gumout fuel system cleaner. I found that this was the most cost-effective solution in situations where you just want to get one bottle of cleaner for a one-off maintenance job on your fuel injectors.

The product was effective, cost efficient and did not contain a formula that void many manufacturer’s warranties, like some of these products.


  • Cheapest I could find when just buying one bottle at a time.
  • Works well.
  • Protects OEM warranty.


  • Some jobs require more than one treatment, so buying single bottles is not the best move.

Here we have a fuel injector cleaning fluid made by the familiar brand, Hyundai, which is known for its economy line of cars. The product claims to clean entire fuel systems in gas tanks up to 20 gallons.

While I found this product to be a good, quality product which does what it claims, it also comes with a significantly higher price tag than many other comparable products out there.

It made me wonder if there was really some advantage to the Hyundai cleaning formula, or if it’s a case of paying for a label because you trust the name that is printed.In any case, it is a good product if you are the type to shell out some extra bucks to be confident in the manufacturer track record.


  • Familiar brand, works great.


  • Costs up to three times as much as other similar products with lesser known brand names.

Here I tried a 6pack of Lucas Oil companies fuel system cleaner. This product does all that other products do but also has the unique claim of helping to cut toxic emissions, effectively reducing the carbon footprint that a car would leave on the environment.


  • Premium label
  • Cleans fuel injectors and helps reduce emissions.


  • Slightly more expensive than other fuel cleaning solutions.

This solution is specially made for diesel engines. While diesel engines are less common in standard automobiles, some older model sedans still use diesel engines and many trucks are diesel fuel based.

An advantage to diesel engined is that they can be easily converted to bio-diesel engines, which means you can fill your tank on discarded frying grease and cut toxic emissions while you're at it.


  • Great product for cleaning diesel fuel based engines.


  • Not suitable for regular gasoline-based engines.

The motor medic fuel system cleaner is another budget friendly solution for fuel injector cleaning. It’s generally about half the price as many other formulas which boast similar claims, while actually accomplishing all that it says it does.

The only problem is that this formula is for some reason not available in certain parts of the world such as Catalina Island.


  • Cheap and effective.


  • Not sold in certain areas.


So there you have it. All five of those products should help clean your fuel injectors and save your car's performance.

best fuel injector cleaner

Which on is the best fuel injector cleaner in your opinion?

But if I am to pick the best one based on my experience, I would have to go with the Lucas Oil 10512-6PK Deep Clean Fuel System Cleaner - 16 oz. I love how affordable and efficient it is. I’m into products that would give me a good result without having to pay so much.

Are there products out there that are even better or more effective than these? If you know something that I don’t, please feel free to comment below. Thanks for reading.

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(1) comment

  • Dan March 20, 2018

    Trying to get a more compkete understanding of your summary/conclusions…

    Please explain how you performed your multiple test using each additive, how you dertmined the results of each product, and any equipment used in your testing.


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