Can You Double Your Fuel Mileage? Time for an Experiment
With gas prices in the $3 per gallon range and rumored to go as high as $4 to $5 a gallon by the end of the year, fuel mileage is probably going to become a concern for most of us. Some of you will drive less often, skip or limit long trips, and leave the Hummers in the garage and drive the Honda more often. Many of you might be considering buying more fuel efficient cars. All good ideas, by the way.
I found this video while surfing last night and the part about adding acetone at the end intrigued me. I’m not sure I’d dump the spare tire like he recommends at the beginning though. If my math is correct, he seems to be claiming a 70% increase — in the overall doubling of his gas mileage — from adding pure acetone to the gas.
Watch the video and then read on because I did a little research you’ll find interesting and will be conducting my own mileage experiment over the next week.
I spent a couple hours researching adding acetone to gasoline and except for the oil company shills that are out to scare everyone by telling them that it doesn’t work and acetone will eat your fuel lines and ruin your engine, the consensus seems to be that the very small amount of acetone that needs to be added to improve mileage will do no harm to rubber fuel lines or engine parts. I even found tests where people had soaked rubber hoses and engine parts in pure acetone for months with no apparent damage. As many of you already know, acetone is also an ingredient in many fuel additives.
Although I was unable to find any tests that came close to the results the guy that made this video achieved, the average increase seems to be anywhere from 10% to 35%. One of the main factors seems to be the age of the car and older cars (5 years plus) seem to benefit more than brand new cars.
The only real issue with using acetone near your car is the fact that acetone is used in finger nail polish and paint removers and can obviously damage your car’s paint. However, in order for acetone to really damage your paint it requires time and some rubbing, so if you clean it off immediately it’s not going to be a problem.
In the interest of science and to either debunk or prove the claim, I’ve decided to conduct an experiment and sacrifice one of my cars to the cause. Okay, I’m not really sacrificing my car because I’m confident that no damage will be done, I just said that for effect.
I am going to buy a bottle of ‘pure’ acetone at Walgreens this afternoon, add some to a full tank of gas, and report my results to you when it’s time to refill, which should be about a week. Of course, if my mileage doubles, it will be two. I recently checked my car’s mileage and it’s currently 18.4 mpg for mixed city and highway driving. I won’t take a long road trip during the week so my driving habits won’t be changing and possibly influencing the test.
I’ve decided to conduct the test using my favorite car, but in order to achieve a fair result, one that meets the apparent age requirement. The car is my beloved and like-new ‘98 Dodge Intrepid with 101,265 miles on it that runs as good as the day it rolled off the dealer’s lot. Hopefully this test won’t change that, but I’m doing this for the good of science and the advancement of mankind. To be honest, I hope it works, because my wallet would love an increase in my fuel mileage.
Read this for more detailed information about adding acetone to your gas tank.
Posted: May 11th, 2007 under Seriously.
Comments: 11
Comments
Comment from Goldy
Time: May 11, 2007, 4:21 pm
Definitely interested to see how this turns out.
Comment from Marisa
Time: May 11, 2007, 5:53 pm
completely, i have to commute like mad to get to school. it would be great to find a way to increase my fuel mileage
Comment from Greg Becerra
Time: May 12, 2007, 1:40 pm
I get weary anytime someone says “secret” then proceeds to tell you something they think you don’t know. The guy in the video probably means well but conspiracies are not too common because when people get together their proximity to others causes their intelligence to drop. It’s easy to use the argument that the car and oil companies don’t want you to know something so that’s probably why he said that.
The reality is that the marketplace should be the first suspect; it controls both business and consumers. So I would put the question to this guy: Does he want to be legally responsible for all people that act on his advice? Remember that you have to include people that modify their cars with who-knows-what, a huge variety of makes, models, and ages, and really stupid people. The car and oil companies don’t want to risk it either.
If there was a simple solution that could work across the board, business would jump at it to stay competitive. But these are such huge markets, and they have to be extremely careful each time they introduce something in that marketplace. So they change very slowly.
The other factor is that consumers are creatures of convenience. Yes you can remove your spare tire. As long as you are at it, take out your rear passenger seats; how often does someone sit in the back? You can also consider removing parts of the body, but must first consider the effect on wind resistance. Why not just buy a more fuel efficient car, or a bicycle, or walk?
Also, when you eventually get a flat and Bubba from the triple-A service comes along in his soot-spewing tow truck, you can rest comfortably knowing you saved some money. But the overall effect, the one that concerns us all, is someone had to drive out, thus wasting fuel in probably the least efficient vehicle available, to save your sorry ass.
I do hope that before everyone rushes to the beauty supply store that they first check with their vehicle warranty contract and their insurance agent. What might save you money in the short term could run into unnecessary expenditures later on.
Comment from Hammer
Time: May 12, 2007, 3:15 pm
Greg, I’ve seen no evidence that pure 100% acetone will cause damage to engine parts, hoses, censors, etc. My experiment will tell us whether there is any validity to this man’s claim, although if you check around on Google, you’ll find that people have been doing this for years, he’s not the first to discover the idea.
Frankly, if I can achieve anything over a 20% increase, I’ll continue adding it. Remember, the fuel additives you buy at your local auto supply store contain acetone.
I disagree with your assessment that this would be made commercially available. The main reason is that I can walk into any drugstore and buy acetone at a very cheap price, why would I be foolish enough to buy it at 5 times the price just because it had STP on the bottle?
I’m guessing you missed the part where I said I didn’t think removing the spare tire was a good idea.
Comment from Chang
Time: May 12, 2007, 5:03 pm
Hammer, you can probably get the acetone a lot cheaper if you buy it in a bigger can from a hardware store instead buying in it small nail polish remover bottles. Look for it in the paint section 
Comment from Hammer
Time: May 12, 2007, 7:02 pm
Thanks Chang. Yeah, since I only need a few ounces for the test I’ll just get a small bottle, but if it works well, I’ll buy it in a larger bottle. It has to be ‘pure’ acetone though.
Comment from Greg Becerra
Time: May 13, 2007, 1:33 pm
Hammer,
I was really just commenting on the video. My hunch is that in 99.999% of cases this would probably work. I’m not arguing about this aspect. But at the same time there will be some idiot that does something stupid with the acetone; I don’t know what, but stupid people are amazing at creating devastation.
My remarks are directed at when people make general claims of fault in the line of assuming someone is hiding something from the public, like the guy in the video said. And when they claim they have a “secret”. Like you said this isn’t a secret, it has been know for some time. That’s the part I’m tired of.
As far as my “assessment that this would be made commercially available,” what I am saying is that if there was a huge market advantage of having higher concentrations of acetone in gas, then companies would add it to compete. The reason I suspect that this does not happen is because there are economic factors that outweigh this. I don’t know what they are because I don’t work for an oil company. I’m saying their interests are not served by holding this back from the consumer. People currently need gas regardless of its chemical composition.
The reason you find STP versions of acetone at high prices is the same reason you find a lot of other stuff at higher prices. It’s brand marketing. This is the same case with non-generic drugs, “new” versions of drugs like Nexium v. Prilosec, Levi’s jeans, Gucci handbags, Baby Oil, etc. Sometimes the brand gives better quality or at least a warranty with their product, but sometimes its just magic dust or something in there.
What we are buying in exchange for the added miles per gallon is the convenience of not having to add extra acetone. We waste a lot of money for convenience, that’s part of capitalism.
Comment from Owned
Time: May 14, 2007, 7:55 am
“I’m saying their interests are not served by holding this back from the consumer.”
If people could make gas last longer, they wouldn’t need to buy it as often which in turn reduces the billions they can make from it, and their executives would only perhaps be able to own a cheaper model private jet and a smaller mansion.
They have a monopoly on the industry, and they ain’t changing it. If some company added acetone to their gas and sold it on the market, the big oil bullies would censor and discredit them out of existence. That’s how business works I’m afraid.
Comment from Hammer
Time: May 14, 2007, 8:07 am
I agree, Owned, I seriously doubt that any oil company would voluntarily add anything to their gasoline or diesel that would improve a vehicle’s fuel mileage.
Comment from Sung
Time: June 21, 2007, 12:23 pm
I’ve tried it and I got 10% increase on my 92 towncar. What I like better is that my car actually got more power. it used to have knocking whaen I eccelerate, but that’s gone. now my towncar runs like sports car.
One thing I have noticed is that my car got little higher engine temperature at first drive with acetone, but after all it’s ok.
Comment from Jim Moudy
Time: April 24, 2008, 7:43 pm
OK, I wanted to try it for myself. I traveled about 140 miles each way, same day, same weather, almost identical traffic, trip was almost exactly due north with a breeze from the west, and fueled with the exact same brand of fuel. Results: Trip A, 146.0 miles / 6.69 gallons used / 21.82 MPG Trip B: 136.8 miles / 5.21 gallons used / 26.26 MPG. Only difference was trip B has 6 oz of Acetone in the tank. No noticeable change in performance. (1998 Toyota Avalon with 355,000 miles — engine has ~70,000 miles).
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