GDI Engine maintenance poses a challenge for some car owners.
Your grandpa probably taught you to maintain your vehicle at a young age, right? I’m sure he preached things like oil changes, brakes and tires to keep your car running properly and staying on the road safely. Here’s the problem though. Your grandpa didn’t own a vehicle with a GDI engine.
If you aren’t familiar with GDI, it stands for “gasoline direct-injected” and it’s a fairly new technology for internal combustion engines. You can find more about the differences between GDI and port fuel-injection in a post I did a while ago.
In this post, I’m not going to explain the direct-injection engine in-depth. Instead, I’m going to focus on how to maintain your GDI engine and give you some tips and tricks to keep your engine running properly.
Why is maintenance more important with GDI Engines?
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It’s not necessarily that maintenance is more important with direct-injected engines, it’s just that there are some fundamental differences in maintenance between a GDI and port fuel-injected (PFI) engine. It pays to know how to properly maintain an engine with direct-injection to prevent costly repairs as the vehicle ages.
Maintenance procedures and supplements for a GDI engine are mostly focused on the fuel system because that is where the carbon starts. Without an effective way to clean the intake valves, a direct-injected engine has a known issue of carbon building up in the engine causing misfires, engine codes and poor drive-ability.
In a traditional port fuel-injection system, fuel entering the cylinder is sprayed over top of the intake valves. In the process, the valve is effectively cleaned and cooled which prevents carbon from ever forming in the first place. GDI engines spray fuel straight into the cylinder, bypassing the valve altogether and eventually causing a build-up of harmful carbon deposits.
What Can I do to Prevent Carbon in GDI Engines?
The most important thing you can do to prevent carbon build-up in a GDI engine is maintain the fuel system. And here’s the thing. It’s easier to keep the fuel system healthy in your vehicle than it is anything else because the fuel changes itself!
All you have to do is be vigilant about making sure you run the proper GDI engine additives in your fuel tank to properly maintain an engine that’s direct-injected. Just because the fuel doesn’t spray on the valve, doesn’t mean it never comes in contact with them. Combustion gases still reach the intake valves in a GDI engine and that’s where these fuel additives made for direct-injection come into play.
You might be curious how much supplements for GDI engines cost and the answer is simple. It depends where you buy them and which direct-injection additives you choose to put in your fuel. The first variable- where you buy GDI engine supplements is the most important, but which additives you buy is a very close second.
Where can I buy GDI Engine additives the cheapest?
You can buy additives for GDI engines at any auto parts store, but the problem is they are not going to be cheap at Advance Auto, O’Reilley’s or Auto Zone. In order to get the cheapest price on additives for your GDI engine, I recommend buying them online.
Another problem with buying additives for a direct-injection engine at the auto parts store is a lack of selection. You can pay $20 for a can of Lucas Intake Valve cleaner that has to be sprayed through the throttle body or you can buy something like BG 44K Fuel System Cleaner on Amazon for the same price per unit.
The reason buying BG 44K is a cheaper option for maintaining your GDI engine is two-fold due to the way 44K Platinum works to clean the fuel system. Instead of using it in every tank of gas, an additive like BG direct-injection cleaner stays in the fuel system and continues to provide maintenance over time. So you won’t have to buy a supplement for every tank of gas and it’s just as cheap the first time around.
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What’s the best GDI fuel system additive or supplement?
There’s a reason I mentioned BG 44K Platinum fuel system cleaner and that’s because it’s hands-down the best GDI additive to prevent carbon deposits all throughout the engine. Not only does 44K prevent and remove carbon from the intake valves, it also cleans the combustion chamber, injectors, ports and even the catalytic converters.
If there was a better way to maintain a GDI engine, I would tell you about it- but there’s not. In every conversation I have about GDI engine maintenance, I preach that prevention is the key and running BG 44K is one of the best ways to prevent carbon in direct-injected engines.
What else is important when maintaining a GDI engine properly?
Some people may wonder why I would even do a post with tips for GDI engine maintenance with the rise of electric vehicles, but here’s the thing. Plug-in Hybrid vehicles are still going to be around for a long time and odds are the engine powering them will be direct-injected in 2023 and well beyond. In fact, some of us still believe strongly that the internal combustion engine is not going anywhere in the near-future therefore learning how to properly care for your vehicles engine is as important now as it has ever been.
For that reason, it’s still important to learn ways to properly maintain a GDI engine and keep the ICE in your Hybrid or traditional combustion engine running properly. If your vehicle still has a combustion engine in 2023, there will still be an emissions factor and a direct-injected engine that isn’t maintained properly has a good chance of failing state emissions tests. Here are some other things you can do to maintain your GDI engine and keep it running smooth.
Change the oil! (Yes, I’m looking at you.)
One of the oft-overlooked aspects of keeping a GDI engine running properly is changing the oil on a regular basis. How does the oil have anything to do with my GDI engine’s fuel system?
The reason it’s important to change oil regularly in a GDI engine is two fold. On one hand changing the oil is important prevent carbon build-up. On the other, burning oil is a known symptom of GDI engines and regular oil changes will help ensure the oil level is clean and regulated.
Also, If you think all systems in an engine are separate, I have news for you. Combustion gases will find their way into the oil of your engine and if not changed regularly, carbon can build-up all throughout.
Carbon deposits in your GDI engine will be the leading causing of internal wear and eventual failure if you don’t change the oil on a regular basis. If you want the best results, don’t use cheap (in quality) oil and instead buy oil designed specifically for GDI engines that are rated GF6.
In a world where you can buy five quarts of Mobil-1 for around $30 that’s rated GF6 for direct-injected engines and hybrid vehicles, there is no reason to cheap out on one of the most important parts of maintaining a GDI engine.
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GDI Engines are known to burn oil also.
As I alluded to above, another reason it’s important to keep up on oil changes in your GDI engine is because direct-injected engines are known to burn oil, especially as they age. Follow the manufacturers recommendations when servicing the engine, but check the oil in between religiously. Chances are, if your GDI engine is broken in, it uses at least a quart every 1,000-1,500 miles.
Use Premium, Quality fuel to aid in maintaining your direct-injected engine.
Ever wonder why some new cars and almost all high-performance engines recommend 91-93 octane? Chances are it’s because that car is equipped with a GDI engine.
Similar in effectiveness to using fuel system additives, running only quality fuel in your GDI engine is a big deal when it comes to maintenance. The reason is due to the way lower-octane fuel burns in the combustion chamber. With higher-octane gasoline, less of the byproducts are left behind to cause a build-up of carbon down the road.
Its hard with the price of gas to imagine paying even more for better fuel, but I use the free Upside app that gives me a percentage off of every gallon and it actually does help offset the higher cost.
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What if I fail to maintain my GDI engine and carbon is a problem?
It’s inevitable that some of you are reading this because you didn’t follow a proper maintenance schedule for your GDI engine. In these cases, is there a way to fix problems caused by carbon in direct-injected engines? The short answer is, maybe.
One of the products I have used in the past to remove carbon and fix a misfire caused by carbon build-up on an intake valve is CRC GDI Intake Valve Cleaner. It’s one of those products I mentioned above that are sprayed through the throttle body of a direct-injected engine with the purpose of cleaning carbon off the valves.
A case in point was a 2009 Mazda with a “Skyactiv” engine that developed a misfire after the maintenance was neglected for a length of time, likely longer than the customer stated but not unreasonable. With two cans of CRC IVC, I was able to fix a cylinder three misfire that otherwise would have cost thousands to fix. Was it a permanent repair? Maybe. I saw the car again a year later with no check engine light and running smooth.
Author- John Green
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