At the risk of bringing up a question with many opinions, I wonder if any of you have ever had to use a propane torch to unfreeze gas lines in the areas where the winter temps might be in the teens or below for long periods? I have and it's a pain… You go outside, inhale through your nose & get a nose bleed because the tiny capillaries have frozen…brrrr Then you go to drive your car and it starts and dies after a few miles because water in the gas line froze. This was before the recirculation systems used to prevent vapor lock lick the really old fuel injected Vettes used to experience since there was only one fuel line.

That being said, I note that most gas dispensed nowadays contains some ethanol which would make added a bottle of a gas-antifreeze product redundant IMHO. I have a background in fuels with storage and delivery on a now-closed Air Force base. Condensation was a huge problem in our 750,000 gallon tanks and at some point the water would need to be drained. The object/goal was to deliver clean and DRY fuel to FB-111 fighter/bombers, KC-135 refuelers, SR-171, and U2 aircraft. The POL guys took a lot of pride in doing their jobs and were constantly changing filters, and doing lab analysis to ensure the delivered product was dry- no moisture/water whatsoever.

At our home, we had a 1,000 gallon heating fuel oil tank. After 15 years, I had it pulled out of the ground as my insurance company considered it a potential liability. I had checked this tank yearly for water and every year no water showed up on the special paste I put on the end of the stick. Well, when I had the tank removed, we found the tank had been tilted in such a way that the pipe we stuck to check the level and for water was actually 6-7 inches higher than the deep end where all the water collected. The result? The tank rusted through from the inside out on the 'deep' end…a million pin holes…

A $30K cleanup was required as the oil had somehow seeped into the water table…eye, ye, ye… Fortunately my insurance covered it all. It was all condensation and despite my checking each year, the water/moisture was never detected. <heavy sigh>

In our cars, brake fluid is another problem. It is hydroscopic and will suck in moisture which seems to eventually migrate down to the calipers/wheel cylinders. So I changed my brake fluid every few years. I made a special pressure bleeder as my wife and my two daughters would disappear whenever I had to change the brake fluid on one of our 6 cars. A pressure bleeder was easy to make and I was able to change the fluid without listening to any whining. I'd steal one of my wife's turkey baster things out of the kitchen to get even.

Okay, that being said, I read in an S-Type thread that adding any gas-line anti-freeze additives would be redundant and I have to wholeheartedly agree. I just wonder though for those of us who don't drive their cars often if I should even give this a second thought? I've also read that alcohol & Jaguar engines don't mix well together. I don't want to start any megalong threads.
But simply would like to know if I were to add a bottle of alcohol to my premium-only fuel, would that cause any issues for the engine?

Condensation happens. I use Chevron Techron because I can & I buy it at Costco, so it doesn't cost much. I do not know if there is any alcohol in this bottle. I am kinda old school in that I used to rebuild my carburetor in my old cars: 57 Plymouth, 66 Plymouth Valiant, and a 75 VW Rabbit every few years & clean all the residue off the interior with Gumout spray. Drove my slant 6 until 94. Gumout used to sell a kit that I'd simply hook up to the carb and allow a can to flow through when I was lazy. I'd have to clean my throttle body in my 84 Volvo every few years because the gum deposits would build up and affect the engine at idle.

I noticed a couple of videos on YouTube with guys pulling their fuel injectors out and cleaning them one by one by hooking up a voltage source via a switch and using a 6 ml syringe with a few cc of cleaner in which one end of an injector fit in tight. The guy would press the button and spray the injector cleaner into a glass jar. Of the two videos, I noticed one guy used a 12 volt motorcycle battery while another used a 5 VDC power source. I imagine the latter was correct, but I'd have to look at the prints to be sure.

I would personally would want to do the one by one injector cleaning so I could observe the spraying pattern and observe the operation, just because. I am not sure what effect of delivering a fuel injector cleaner into the fuel rail would accomplish, other than cleaning the gum deposits off the fuel rail interior as well, but rather the catalytic converters.

I don't want to cause any damage further down the system and I imagine people have different experiences here, so I am not asking on ways to do it or opinions of one cleaner over another or if anti-seize <ahem>… But I simply want to know if I'll cause any issue if I threw in a bottle of something like Drygas? Thanks. I will drive a car for 20 or more years & honestly don't care what anyone thinks. But by doing that, I get to see things most people don't. I'm not sure if my 2004 X-Type will last that long, but what the heck. I will do all the work or at least plan to.

 

Like you I use Techron once a year and change brake fluid every 2 years.

With the onset of 10 percent alcohol fuel I have assumed that Drygas is unnecessary. Sorry, nothing to substantiate that conclusion. However, I can't imagine that a can of Drygas would do any harm should you desire to step it up to another level. Maybe some temp drive ability problems?

As concerns injectors, my policy is leave well enough alone. If you start to accumulate high miles I would go for a professional injector cleaning process before taking them out. My car has error coding for bad injectors and so that gives some small comfort to a policy of "wait & see". Like the Dr said, "first do no harm".

 

Not sure where you read that Jag engines don't get along with alcohol. (?)

Irrespective of what grade of gasoline you use, adding a tiny bottle of ethanol or methanol won't hurt. Might not 'help' either, most likely won't make any difference at all.

When's the last time you heard of anyone have a frozen gas line?

 

The last time I thawed out a gas line was in 1970- quite a while ago in a 1957 Chevy. We started throwing a bottle of Dry Gas 2-3 times a year & never had the problem again. This car was my great uncle's in NYC. He drove it may 1-2 a month, if that much. The winter of 1969/70 was an especially cold one in the Catskills. I've been around the world since. In Dec 1989, I went to Bayonne to pick my Volvo up from being shipped back from Greece. That entire month we had no day where the temp went about freezing. That car has 2 fuel pumps. The one in the gas tank had froze and I barely was able to drive it home to CT. Once in CT, it stayed in a warm garage and I threw a couple bottles of dry gas in the fuel tank- no more problem. Over 20 years ago.

 

I guess this like anything else in life. You experience something and just out of habit you continue to use a product when in reality, such as fuel in a gas tank, it already contains enough ethanol to ensure the moisture from any source is removed & burned.

My grandfather used "high test" gasoline in all of his cars- including his 1963 Rambler. It was just out of habit. I didn't understand then, like I do now about how higher octane fuel will prevent pre-ignition or 'knocking.' But it's amazing how well the engine in the X-Type, for example will quickly adjust to make it seems like regular fuel is okay to burn. I've never tried it myself.

 

Pre-ignition and knocking (detonation) are completely separate phenomena that have no direct connection and only indirect connection under very rare and specific circumstances. Many many people confuse the two and are further confused as to what high octane fuel is in the first place.

High octane levels in gasoline can assist with detonation but have no effect on pre-ignition.

 

Depends on the context!

(Sorry, I know I shouldn't have.)

All my old Landrover Diesels have a decanteur for water removal by hand. I've even installed one on my old mum's C/H oil tank. Surprising how much condensation water can be drained.