Diesel injector cleaners?

[pompei]

My daily is a 2004 Saab 9-3 diseasel with about 110k under its belt.

 

When starting from cold, there is a cloud of blue smoke and the idle is rough and clonky. If it were petrol, I'd say it was only firing on 3 plugs. I'm guessing gummed up injectors? Once it's warm, it's fine.

 

There seems to be dozens of injector cleaner products available. Anyone had any experience of them? Are they snake oil?

 

Thanks

[dollywobbler]

Surely the first suspect with poor diesel starting is glow plugs? Try giving them two bursts before operating the starter and see if that cures it.

[Mike D]

I'd defo go with changing the glow plugs

[trigger]

I used that BG244 stuff on my Mondeo and it did seem to help, I bought it via ebay for about £25 delivered.

 

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BG244-Professional-G ... 2eb7351fe5

[dieselnutjob]

I didn't think that you can gum up a common rail injector

they typically run at 300bar at idle and over 1000bar at full power. that kind of pressure would pretty quickly ungum anything

I don't think that they really depend on glowplugs much either

they are common rail aren't they?

[Mr_Bo11ox]

At Perkins one of the engineers told me they tested that 'Forte' fuel system cleaner on one of their endurance test engines and it gave a decent improvement in injector cleanliness, I think they observed it by watching the injector durations get longer and longer as the injectors became fouled, then shorten again after the treatment. I think that had to leave the enigne shut off for 24 hours with the 'treated' diesel in the injectors + rail. They had no interest in endorsing it or anything, just wanted to see if it was any cop. they rated it much higher than the 'official' Caterpillar fuel treatment stuff.