When I worked as a mechanic at a Buick dealership, some of the old mechanics would pour water down the carburetor VERY SLOWLY. The water turns to steam and the shock knocks off the carbon. When the old ladies would bring in those beautiful Buick Electras and Riverias because they idled rough,the Service Manager would take the car out on the freeway and really get after it. I went with him once and you could actually hear the carbon particles tinkling out the exhaust pipes. He would ask if they were burning Ethel as recommended in those 11:1 high compression engines. The customers jaw would jut out and they would say they will only burn regular. Idiots. I think adding transmission fluid to your gas would only carbon up your engine even more, if it did anything. Sorry off topic. I use Stabil and fill the gas tank to the top to prevent condensation from forming when I park my GT for the winter. (I empty my weedwacker,leaf blower and chain saw whenever they won't be used for several weeks.) Six months later the GT starts right up. I don't have any experience with SEaFoam.

I had a stuck injector in our Dodge a couple years ago. Got some cleaner with the chrysler brand from the dealership to assure compatibility with the fuel system. Had to add the stuff to a couple of tankfuls to fix it for good. Now I add a bottle of Techron a couple times a year. They put the stuff in Chevron gas so I figure it's safe enough. Ditto jemdandy. If the injectors aren't dirty, there's nothing to gain gas mileage wise.

Every car needs attention, but rarely do two otherwise identical cars need the exact same services. Yet when at the dealer, quick lubes, and especially many of the chain stores you will see this "flush this and flush that" mentality. Business consultants have pushed for the last decade or so that as a business "You can't make money fixing cars", you need to sell services. Their programs allow for one or two top technicians inside the organization who actually can fix cars. Then a few techs who are on the road to becoming a journeymen technicians, and then essentially entry level people which are of course on the low end of the pay scale. If the shop gives an entry level person even average difficulty work, the chance of a mistake occurring where the car has to come back is quite high. So they have in effect created an entire list of services that can be sold and performed where little to no experience is required by the tech and therefore they have a very low chance of a mistake occurring. These flush services are more profitable per hour than the shop can charge for major repairs. Consider this the second part of Newtons law, " where for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". All of the price shopping for major repairs has stripped the profitability out of them, and at a dealer warranty work really tears the GP out of the equation. As a business they need a constant revenue stream to keep their doors open because true to the consultants description, they don't make money actually fixing broken cars so these services are sold and performed by an entry level group in order to subsidize the business when doing the more difficult, and especially warranty type repairs. Now do you need the differentials flushed, and the transmission serviced, injectors cleaned, etc? The fluid services are something I could only tell by looking at your owners manual, and by checking the conditions of the fluids myself. The problem here is even then the best that I can do is still subject to being a "subjective opinion". The injectors would only REQUIRE cleaning if your car was presenting a drive-ability symptom, otherwise, a bottle of cleaner once a year is just fine. A road test with the scan tool would show me if there was any chance of this being needed. The differentials are a simple drain and refill BTW, complete with easy to access drain and fill plugs (dipstick in some cases). Throttle body service? Easy to tell just by looking, as well as by watching the PCM control the idle speed with a scan tool. Many cars have a minimum idle speed, and the idle can be commanded with a scan tool to the lowest speed that the engine can reach. If the engine reaches the minimum idle speed without stalling, then the answer is "No", you don't require servicing. But consider this, the consultants have said its cheaper for the customer and the business to simply sell the service, than it is to employ and pay a technician who can and will perform the steps to test this and find out. You have seen price pressure from other posters here in this forum through the years that are the basis for the consultants advising the way they do. (Newtons Law again, that was the original action). Dollars and cents. The technician replacing a crankshaft in an engine is making the business around $100/hr gross profit while he costs the business $25-35 including benefits to be doing the repair. The flush routines can produce well over $250/hr gross profit for the business with close to minimum wage employees doing them. The crankshaft repair has a high risk of failure, the flushes extremely low risk. From that perspective, the consultants are correct. Anyone wonder why its difficult to find a real good technician/mechanic?

Thank you both garymunson-2008 and brickeyee for your replies. You both gave me a lot to think about and I'll try to answer your specific questions where I can. After reading your posts I began to wonder about whether I would be getting oil savings, but trading it off for a broken furnace in a few years, thus mitigating all the savings. So I called my HVAC control company (Aprilaire) and spoke to a technical rep there to find out what their view was on this device. While the guy I spoke to hadn't heard of the Intellicon device, he agreed with my understanding of how the basic thermostat/control unit worked (and you're right garymunson-2008 - I said that the whole system stops when the Intellicon kicks in, but in fact the main blower continues to run for a few minutes afterward). The Aprilaire rep didn't think this was really a control panel issue since it just cuts into the furnace firing circuit, but rather that it was more of a furnace question. So I opened up my furnace, and noted that it was manufactured by Beckett. I called them today, and spoke to a technical rep there named Dan. He also wasn't really familiar with the Intellicon, but he continually asserted that the furnace was "built like a tank" and would not have undue wear from repeated cycling (the aptly named "pulse" functionality). I asked him point blank whether there would be any problem with driving off water from the oil combustion, but he said that the oil furnaces run so hot that it wasn't an issue. He felt that a gas furnace would have a lot more problems with this technology, but the oil furnace wouldn't have any problems with it. Furthermore, he asserted that Intellidyne LLC (the makers of the Intellicon) also make furnaces, and wouldn't put a product into the marketplace that would damage their reputation (as this would if it broke furnaces regularly). I didn't realize Intellidyne LLC made furnaces, and I don't see anything about that on their website, but I'm not in the business and I know they do sell their hot water heater device rebranded as Beckett, so it's entirely possible that they make furnaces too. When I spoke to my oil company rep about the effectiveness of running the furnace at a lower temperature to save money, he agreed that if I could manually set it lower in the controller then that would drive savings (though my particular controller doesn't actually have that flexibility), but the problem with that approach is that on really cold days the system wouldn't generate enough heat because it would have a hard limit at my manual lower temperature setting, rather than being able to run at full throttle. I could go down to the basement and increase the limit temperature on the furnace whenever it got too cold, but that turns thermostat maintenance into a manual chore, and I'd be guessing at an optimal set point, whereas the Intellicon is supposed to do it automatically. By making the effective furnace outflow lower temperature whenever possible, I believe (assume?) this results in lower temp furnace exhaust, which would drive some probably small but real savings. Regarding the oil buildup in the system: I will have it inspected and cleaned yearly anyway, which I think should eliminate this risk. So I guess I'm still leaning towards getting the Intellicon-FA. (1) My oil guy says it worked in his empirical tests to save oil, and I'm mostly convinced that the process described by Intellidyne would do that, (2) my thermostat/furnace-control guy reaffirmed my general understanding of the mechanism but didn't espouse an overall opinion one way or another, and (3) the Beckett rep thought that this wouldn't do any damage to the furnace itself and was (to use his words) "an investment in the system". I realize that there is a different dynamic for hydronic systems, or for gas-powered forced air systems, but given my oil furnace FA system, I think this probably does work as advertised. The tricky issue now is how to accurately measure whether it's providing savings. The LED display gives a reading of the savings it has provided, but that's a bit like asking the fox to guard the henhouse. I don't have a very accurate way of measuring oil use short of asking how many gallons were provided in the last refueling, and even so that doesn't account for changes in thermostat settings over the period, nor hotter/colder days requiring less/more oil to maintain the same temperature. That's primarily why I'm trying so hard to convince myself that this is a good investment on the merits - because I won't be able to conclusively prove it after the fact from what I can tell (unless anyone has a recommendation). Thank you all for your time and advice, I do find this truly helpful. Regards, -Chris