N54 Intake Cleaning Serivce
(AKA CARBON CLEANING)
Many of the newer cars on the road today are direct injection engines. Briefly, that means that the fuel is injected directly into the combustion chamber as opposed to the more traditional location further up the intake runner. This is great for performance. But fuel is also a great cleaner, and by flowing through the intake runners, the fuel actually cleans the walls of the runners. Because that is not happening in the newer direct injection engines, occasionally we have to go into and clean these. Currently, we are recommending that this should be done every 40,000-50,000 miles.
This process is about one day’s worth or work. First the covers and the intake manifold need to be removed. This gives you access to the intake ports. We use the BMW designed port cleaner for the cleaning process. You can see in the before and after photos how much build there is inside these ports. That build up is a combination of oil and dirt and can destroy your plugs and injectors, making your car run roughly or not at all. For a more detailed description of the problem you can reference this article on Edmunds.com.
Be wary of companies that do not use the proper equipment. BMW designed a specific tool for this. If you mechanic says that he will just spray some degreaser or brake clean in the port and scrub with a brush, he will likely damage your engine. Here at RRT, we only use the best available resources and by having an extensive selection of manufacturers tools and equipment, we can complete the job quickly and efficiently for far less money than the dealer.
