Sea Foam Motor Treatment Reviews

It’s amazing how expensive all of these fuel and oil additives get. Before you spend your money, you have two questions: Will Seafoam work for my car? Will Sea Foam hurt or damage my engine?

Here’s the thing. A properly maintained car shouldn’t need sea foam. I am a fan of using Lucas Fuel additive on a regular basis to improve fuel mileage and help protect the engine.

But other than that most cars just need regular tune ups and oil changes. Do that, and you are fine.

However, I grew up in a family that buys all of their cars dirt cheap and then proceeds to resurrect than for another half-decade of use.

Heck, there’s been a couple of Fords that made it past the quarter-million mile mark before we had to scrap them.

Fuel and oil additives play a big role in keeping these cars running.

I hadn’t dealt with Sea Foam much until I met my father-in-law. He’s a big fan, so I had to try some on my next junkermobile.

Hopefully this article helps you as you decide on the right treatment.

Does Seafoam Work?

Here’s the thing: you are probably looking to use Seafoam to either improve your car’s performance, or you are looking to use it to quiet a sticky lifter.

Sea Foam For Ticking Lifters

Seafoam does not seem to work very well for quieting lifters. Reviewer after reviewer has tried and failed to get their lifters to shut up.

I’ve also tried Lucas and, while I love their products, it would not quiet the lifter.

If you need to quiet a lifter, check out Marvel Mystery Oil, it seems to get pretty good reviews for doing that.

Sea Foam For Improving Engine Performance

Here is where Sea Foam seems to excel. It is designed to remove gummed up deposits from an engine and works great for getting rid of carbons deposits and old gas and all of that other gunk that ruins a vehicle’s performance.

And not just smoothing out the engine, but actually transforming their performance. People say stuff like “It doesn’t seem like the same car”.

So as far as an injector cleaner, I am a huge fan, and think Sea Foam works quite well.

How to Use Sea Foam?

A lot of people have a lot of complicated methods such as feeding it in through the master vacuum line. But there are some inherent risks to doing it that way.

I’m a fan — and my father-in-law’s method as well — is just to dump it into the tank. On our old clunkers we do it about once every 5,000 miles and it seems to improve both the overall miles per gallon, as well as the vehicles acceleration.

Is Seafoam Safe for Both Gas And Diesel Engines?

One of the best things about Sea Foam is how safe it is. O2 sensors do not seem to be effected by it, and both Gas and Diesel engines can get carbon deposits cleaned out by it with no problem. You can also use it with ethanol.

The key thing is that it is entirely petroleum based with no chemical conditioners. Bottom line, it’s safe.

My Sea Foam Experience

My experience with Sea Foam was on a 1985 Chevy. It had a bad habit of dying in intersections. And in the middle of the road. And on the interstate.

Let’s just say it was both embarrassing and quite inconvenient.

So I tried running some Sea Foam through it. Which made it better, but was no fix.

And then, one day it died outside of an autoparts store. Too far from a gas station, I bought 4 containers of HEET, and dumped them in the tank.

Expensive? Yes, but the truck ran for 4 blocks before dying — enough to get it out of the main road. In the end, I think my problem was water in the tank.

After a little work on the carburetor, and a fuel up, the truck ran great and I could take the tank all the way to empty without stalling.

Apparently the HEET helped me burn out whatever was in the tank.

Theoretically, the Sea Foam could’ve done the same thing, but since my problem was water and not carbon build up, it wasn’t the right choice for me.