The proper maintenance of your car’s engine is a crucial aspect to ensure its optimum performance. While regular oil changes are essential for keeping your engine healthy, engine maintenance involves more than just oil replacement. Engine flush becomes particularly valuable when your vehicle is driven infrequently or uneven oil changes start to lead to different issues within your engine.
Engine flushing involves the procedure of removing the contaminants accumulated within the engine. This article explains, why you need to flush your engine and how to perform it.
What is an Engine Flush?
An engine flush is a process that is used to remove deposits, dirt, and other contaminants that have accumulated in the engine. It ensures the proper cleaning of your engine.
You must flush your vehicle’s engine after an appropriate time interval. The engine flushing process improves the service life and working of the engine.
To clean the engine, firstly, put the engine flush cleaner into the fuel filler hole and let it idle for approximately 8 to 14 minutes.
As you pour it, it mixes with oil and flows throughout the engine to remove contamination. After some time, drain the oil, replace the oil filter, add new oil, and start running again.
Is an Engine Flush Necessary?
A good engine flush helps to loosen deposits, remove dirt, and return the engine to like-new condition.
But in the case of conventional vehicle engines with longer mileage, sludge can be the only obstacle to preventing oil from leaking through the damaged or cracked seals. Therefore, you shouldn’t flush your old engine.
If you clean the old engine, then the contaminants seal will be removed, and engine oil will start leaking. If your vehicle has this category engine, then do not start the engine flush.
It may not be worth restoring an engine in such poor condition without first repairing damaged seals and other blemishes.
Basically, you pick your problem: whether it’s sludge and deposits affecting performance or cleaning your engine, the seal will show its true condition.
Advantages of an Engine Flush
The engine flush ensures the efficient working of the engine. It also increases the service life of the engine. The engine flush has the following advantages:
1) Remove Deposit Build-Up
The proper and regular maintenance of the vehicle is very important for its efficient working. A properly maintained vehicle doesn’t require an engine flush.
With a short drive of a few kilometers and many stops and starts, dirt and sludge particles may mix with the oil engine, which may convert into deposits inside the engine and accumulate over time. These deposits limit oil flow.
An engine flush is a chemical abrasive that assists in loosening stuck valves and rings and expelling harmful mud and other contaminants.
The engine cleaning before adding new oil ensures the optimum performance of the new oil, and the new oil provides maximum protection. If you do not clean your engine before pouring new oil, your new oil will be mixed with sludge or deposits from the used oil, and it will not perform efficiently.
Read More: Different types of Engines
2) Give Your Car a Clean Slate
Most cars that are driven and serviced regularly don’t need to engine. Following are some cases where you need engine flush:
- Car whose maintenance history is unknown: If you buy an old car on a premium and don’t have its maintenance record, adding a few quarts of new oil after flushing the engine can save you a problem.
- Car with a recently running internal engine: You know the service record of the vehicle engine is very important. The service record of the vehicle saves you from many problems. If you buy an old working engine for your car, flushing the engine allows you to remove any remaining particles before adding new oil.
- Car with a long oil change interval: Again, you know the service history of the car and know that the owner hardly changed the oil. Dirty oil only gets dirty, so there is almost certainly a buildup in the engine. An engine flush can extend the life of your car vehicle.
3) Helps Increase Fuel Efficiency
The dirt and debris inside the engine may spoil the quality of the oil and increase its viscosity. As the viscosity of the oil increases, it demands more energy to circulate through the engine.
The dirt and deposits on engine components may also create additional resistance, and the engine consumes more fuel to overcome this additional resistance. The engine flush helps to allow the engine parts to move efficiently, and fuel economy is maximized.
4) Reduce Emissions
As the piston ring sticks to the piston ring lands due to deposits, the oil gets into the combustor and burns there. The burning of the engine oil increases the emission of exhaust gases, and burnt oil is pushed out of the exhaust pipe.
The proper cleaning of the engine assists in freeing stuck rings and improves fuel economy, which reduces emissions.
5) Reduce Engine Heat
Overheating has a negative effect on the engine and oil. The engine overheating may completely fail the engine.
Overheating decreases the engine performance and efficiency. As the engine overheats, it consumes more oil. Mud and debris work as insulators, preventing the engine from removing excess heat as intended.
The engine cleaning allows heat to be properly managed for maximum efficiency and oil life.
Read More: Signs and Causes of Engine Overheating
6) Convenience
This doesn’t work with all engine flushes, but it does work with AMSOIL engine and transmission flushes. It provides results in a single application. And it just takes 10 to 15 minutes to use.
You may also safely utilize it in gas engines, diesel engines, and automatic transmissions.
How Much Does An Engine Flush Cost?
The engine flush cost varies according to your vehicle model, labor cost, product brand, and your living area. The average cost to engine flush is from $40 to $100. In this cost, the product itself costs from $8 to $40, while the remaining cost is labor cost. Flushing takes about 12 minutes, but the oil change process takes about 20 to 35 minutes which comes after the flushing process.
How to Perform an Engine Flush?
Follow the following steps to flush your engine:
- Park your car and turn off the engine.
- Let your engine cool down to prevent yourself from any harm.
- Find the oil drain plug and remove it to drain the old oil.
- Before draining the oil, it is compulsory to put an oil pan under the plug.
- After draining the old oil, reinstall the oil plug and retighten it properly.
- Now, add engine flush cleaner into the engine through the oil filler cap.
- Now, turn on your engine and let it idle for about 5 to 16 minutes.
- After the recommended interval, turn off the ignition.
- Now, again, remove the oil drain plug and let the engine flush cleaner and other contaminants to be removed.
- Install the drain plug back to its original place and add fresh oil by using a funnel.
- Use a dipstick to check the oil level. If it is insufficient, add more oil up to the appropriate level.
- Turn on your engine and let it operate for about 2 to 3 minutes. Turn off the engine and let it cool down.
- Now, check again the oil and add more if needed.
FAQ Section
Why You Should Flush Engine?
With time, the quality and performance of the engine coolant and oil reduce. After some duration, the coolant and oil start to lose their boiling and freezing resistance. Living in a very hot or cold climate means that one day you may find that you cannot start your engine or suffer from a costly boil. The engine contains multiple parts in the cooling system that may rust.
As the parts of the cooling system get rust, they are badly damaged. The rust mixes with the coolant and accumulates elsewhere during the cycle. Proper and regular engine flushing prevents the engine from severe damage and counteracts the fatal clogging of the cooling system.
Other parts of the cooling system can corrode in other ways, and particles can block the cooling system. Proper flushing removes all of these contaminants and replaces the old, worn-out cooling system parts with new ones.
Does an engine flush improve gas mileage?
The flushing of the engine doesn’t affect your fuel economy that much, so you probably won’t observe a difference.
How often is engine flush needed?
The engine flush is one of the perfect methods to increase the life of the engine. However, maximum latest vehicles don’t require engine flushing. Normal maintenance is best done to keep the engine running properly and smoothly.
Does engine flush damage your engine?
The flushing process of the engine may damage it. The engine flush is made of different chemical additives. These chemicals can severely damage engine seals, and head gaskets and lead to engine replacement. These chemicals are also hazardous to oil-lubricated parts such as turbochargers.
Is engine flush necessary before oil change?
The engine flush is just required on a normal basis. The engine flush improves the engine performance. Ideally, the oil should be changed to properly maintain the engine so that sludge does not accumulate inside the engine. You shouldn’t perform the engine flushing with every oil change.