Anyone remember Redex?
I worked at a garage in the 1970s and customers would ask for a shot when filling up with petrol - not sure what it was meant to do.
We also used it lubricate sticking starter motors.
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Its an upper cylinder lubricant, amongst other things. It is still available as far as i know.
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Still on sale in France. My local country supermarket has it.
I was considering buying some only yesterday, by chance - spotted it on the shelf and thought I hadn't given the car a can of injector cleaner for a while.
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They diluted it a few years ago and kept the price static per volume. The 'new improved' formula in £10 bottle does 9 tank fulls instead of 50.
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On the forecourt we used to have it in 2/3pint trigger container that gave a set amount per squirt - one squirt for a small car, two for a large.
I think we charged about 20p a squirt, which probably equates to about the same price today as quoted in mfarrow's post.
The other thing we had, which was always getting run over, was the two stroke oil dispenser, which had a lever to set the various dilutions per gallon.
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The other thing we had which was always getting run over was the two stroke oil dispenser which had a lever to set the various dilutions per gallon.
:), if I'm allowed to say that. Things seem to become "history" very fast!
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I too, worked on a station forecourt in the mid 70s. IIRC petrol was around 54p a gallon (note gallon) for 4 star. We sold 2 star right up to 5 star for the Jags and occasional Roller.
Jags (XJ6s) were great fun with twin tanks to fill. We would put the pump on lock for these and go off and serve someone else. All well and good until the auto cut off failed!
Redex was often something usually added by the old boys. They felt that a shot of redex per gallon would save having to have the engine decoked.
Ah! The unforgettable smell of petrol on my jeans after a shift.....
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I remember pouring it into the top of the carb on my old VW Polo with the engine revving and watching all the soot fly out - I keep a bottle of it in the boot now and tip a generous slug into the tank occasionally when filling up. I wonder if, with detergents etc in modern fuels and more efficient engines generally these days if I\'m actually doing any good?
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In the mid 80s I worked in an oil-testing laboratory.
Amoungst many other things, the lab tested dozens of oil & petrol samples - many were sent by County Council Trading Standards departments e.g retail petrol samples to check octane-rating.
I vaguely remember a sample of Redex being tested.
The conclusion was that Redex was described as being nothing more than \'off-spec Toluene\' or \'off-spec Xylene\'.
Toluene & Xylene are petrol-like chemicals with an octane-rating greater than a hundred. Adding either of these chemicals to a tank of petrol will increase the octane-rating but only in proportion to the relative volume in the tank.
So, adding, say, 1 litre of redex to a tank of 50 litres of 92 RON petrol would only increase the octane-rating by a fraction of a RON unit - say from 92.0 up to 92.2 (depending on exactly what chemical is in the Redex). To make a noticeable difference you would have to use 5 to 10 litres plus of Redex (in 50 litres of Petrol); and even then it would make a difference only if the car had a compression-ratio issue (pinking).
I would conclude that Redex is nothing more than a placebo pep-pill for your car.
Edited by Lounge Lizard on 06/03/2008 at 10:46
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I must admit I thought Redex was just a cheap thin oil - certainly feels like it (I have an old bottle lying about). But if you want a proper upper cylinder lubricant, the advice I got from an oil company chemist was to use the stuff that really was one; two stroke oil.
And it\'s cheaper!
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Thought it smelled like DERV when I used it way back in the '70s.
Remember pouring it into the carburettor while revving the engine and clouds of smoke poured out of the exhaust. Much to my neighbours annoyance. Well it obviously did some good. Didn't it?
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Do some good. Father used to use it every fillup.
1959 Morris 1000: bores clapped after 30k miles. Hillman Minx ditto after 40k miles.
I suspect OK pre WW2.(tolerances were carp.)
Post 1970s with better engine tolerances/oil and petrol.. waste of money.
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When I was in the Air Force, we used a mineral hydraulic oil known as OM15. It smelt and felt and looked exactly like Redex. We used leftovers (aircraft rules prevent storage of part-full cans for later use) in our cars, and it seemed to work the same as Redex too. The price to us was good, but I bet all those cans of OM15 weren't cheap to the Air Force.
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