Fuel Injection Service
What Is Fuel Injection Service?
Fuel injection service is generally for diesel engines. Since the introduction of the diesel engine in the late 1800s, diesel engines used fuel injection. Diesel engines are compression ignition engines that compress air and diesel fuel until it ignites.
As opposed to gasoline engines that spark ignition engines that ignite air and gasoline by means of a spark plug, compression engines need to have an exact air and fuel ratio to ignite properly.
Is Fuel Injection Service Necessary?
Fuel injection is essential because it provides the exact amount of fuel needed by the engine. Because of this, diesel engines are very efficient as compared to gasoline fed engines, which use a carburetor setup. In the 1970s, fuel injection was also introduced to gasoline engines due to stricter emission standards and the need for more efficient gasoline engines.
Fuel Injection Service Auto Maintenance
Basically, fuel injection service includes:
- checking the entire fuel system
- repair or replace damaged parts
- recalibrate the fuel system to OEM specifications
The benefits of regularly having this service (especially for diesel engines) are good fuel efficiency and lower emissions. Better fuel mileage is achieved and it will also save you the hassle of breaking down in the middle of the road.
You can tell if your vehicle needs fuel injection service if your car drives sluggish, poor fuel mileage, thick black smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe on diesel engines and on newer models, there is a “check engine light” that comes up on the dash.
On gasoline engines, fuel injection service is not necessarily needed especially on a well-maintained vehicle. The fuel injection system in gasoline engines is actually designed to be relatively maintenance free. On top of that, gasoline itself is a very good cleaner. In fact, most mechanics will advise the use of gasoline in cleaning the internal parts of an engine during an overhaul.
Fuel injection service offered for gasoline engines are mostly for performance tuning. Nowadays, fuel injection service is offered for standard cars as well. In this case, regarding fuel injectors, customers are given the option whether to get brand new parts or to have their old ones refurbished.
On diesel engines, fuel injection service is a must. The maintenance schedule is usually indicated in the owner’s manual. This is actually considered as “diesel engine tune-up”. Overall performance of a diesel engine will greatly depend on the condition of the fuel system.
Fuel injection service for diesel engines not only cleans and refurbishes the fuel system parts but, also involve the calibration of the fuel injection pump. Good calibration of the injection pump will result to better performance, better mileage, and lower emissions. Most diesel injection pumps are engine driven until the adaptation of electronic fuel injection and recently, the introduction of Common Rail Direct Injection or CRDI.
An electronic fuel injection and CRDI systems do away with the mechanical injection pump and replaces it with a computer controlled unit. For these systems, there is no need for calibration anymore since they are all computer controlled. However, the need for fuel injection service is necessary because diesel fuel accumulates more build up than gasoline.
