Silk wrote:ChristianAB wrote:Silk wrote:ChristianAB wrote:I will invite you to drive as a passenger in my car. Then you will stop laughing.
I'm not laughing. I don't sell the stuff.
It seems to me that, no matter what the hobby, there's no shortage of fools out there who will spend vast amounts of money on things that make no provable difference outside of their own imaginations.
Indeed, you ARE serious. You must be very confident to be so definitive on something you have not seen with your own eyes. Worse, you imply that I somehow convinced myself of something that isn't there. Well, maybe so. Either way, I guess a third pair of eyes is needed.
There have been numerous reports in the motoring press over the years warning about fuel additives. In the end, it's (almost) a free country and you can choose to spend your money on whatever you wish within the bounds of legality - bearing in mind, those who exercise these same freedoms in order to sell you the stuff are equally free to have a laugh or two at your expense. In much the same way, some people will buy speaker cable at over £100 a metre, even though the science tells them in isn't worth it.
Why do you so readily trust those reports over the views of the people driving those cars? Certainly, from a scientific perspective, it does not seem at all difficult to produce a fuel additive that would actually do what it says on the tin. Whether the ones you buy at your local fuel station are actually (there and) effective for your particular engine and driving style is another matter. But I would reserve my judgment until I see it for myself. That you don't is what is puzzling me.
A few years ago, I enjoyed go-karting at a track in Milton Keynes. And over there, they would use the same spec of go-karts as the ones used at a track in Sandown Park. However, a few regulars had reported on many occasions to the chief mechanic that karts at one track didn't seem to have the same level of power as those used on the other track. No way, he'd answered every time: same spec, same engines, roughly same mileage, so should be the same power. Until one day, they brought karts from the two locations to only one of the two tracks, tested them and measured the lap times. Lo and behold, surprise surprise, there was a consistent difference in lap times. They took the karts apart, again and again, and yet couldn't find anything that could explain the discrepancy in lap times. In the end, through trial and errors, they realised that at one track, they were adding, from time to time, fuel system cleaners in the karts' fuel. They tested the idea and indeed, the discrepancy in lap times disappeared. This story is from the chief mechanic himself.