When to do a carbon clean?

A6 All/ S6 All
#1

Quick question for the experts on here:

At what intervals should a carbon clean be done? I bought my 2009 S6 a little over a year ago with 35k miles on it. I am now at 59k. The only carbon clean that I know of was done at 15k, according to carfax.

The car runs great, no noticeable loss in power since I bought it, and still gets pretty decent mileage (for what it is) at 16 mpg on my commute and ~20-21 mpg highway on longer trips.

From what I have read, I have seen suggestions of performing a carbon clean every 10-15k. With no obvious symptoms - I am hesitant to break it open and perform this service unless I will see some real benefit from doing so.

Your thoughts?

#2

You’re due for one, I believe.

The general consensus is that they should be done every 20k-30k miles - performance starts to decrease as early as 10k miles. I think every 25k is a pretty good interval, even if you aren’t “noticing” any performance losses. It’s hard to notice subtle, gradual power losses. But you’ll probably notice the gain once you do the carbon clean.

Additionally, it’s just a good preventative maintenance item - the carbon buildup can break off and score your cylinders, leading to permanent power loss and possibly reliability issues.

Figure it’ll cost about $800 for a reputable shop to do it, or you can buy a carbon cleaning kit from JHM and follow some of the tutorials in this forum if you are feeling handy.

It’s also a great time to add JHM intake manifold spacers, if you haven’t already, since your manifold will already be off anyways.

#3

C.scott was right.

Depending on how you drive and if you sit in traffic often you want to be in the 20k range. If you do a lot of highway driving and not a lot of sitting in traffic then you can push it to the 30k.

Keep in mind its carbon that will kill your injectors and do damage to your motor and over time take out your cats if and when chunks brake off and get into the cats along with carbon getting poor running injectors.

like mentioned its a good time to do the JHM intake spacers and look into even thinking about the JHM cleaned and flowed injectors. Stock cars when you look at a car fax almost always have injectors replaced around or after 60k. You will hear a lot of us talk about JHM because they have really stepped in and offered tunes that actually perform. Exhaust systems that actually help make more power and a good selection of low priced parts. The carbon clean kit along with the spacers are a good example. Its always good to invest in companies that are actively helping to support and keep the V10 Alive,

As a overall doing a carbon clean consider.
I have seen injectors that are flowing down cause direct issues to cylinder damage. So Its seriously something to think about. Look into an oil separator update intake spacers as mentioned and doing a carbon clean is a good time to check for potential oil leaks that might be an upcoming issue.