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Sorry, I don't have the answer but I do have a question. Did you have to change the plugs after this treatment? I want to do the Seafoam but I just changed the plugs and I don't want to foul them. They are a royal pain to change on this car. I've used Seafoam on lots of different types of cars and never changed the spark plugs because of it.

It's my wife's car, but I appreciate it for what it is: a safe, reliable (change the transmission fluid), comfortable and functional vehicle. I don't mind driving it or working on it, but I'm not particularly attached to it either. Of course most days I walk past a nicely modified late model Passat just to drive my old '73 Thing, so I'm not exactly the poster boy for normal when it comes to cars.

AutoRx has worked wonders on my sludgey turbo charged VW engine. It's the real deal and not snake oil. Just follow the directions and you will be rewarded with a nice clean engine.

Can I ask how you damaged it? I recently read the instructions on cleaning this and I plan to try it soon. I'm not much of a mechanic and if there are some pitfalls to look out for then I'd appreciate knowing about them in advance. Did you spray with alcohol and dab with a q-tip? Personally, I've always filled a large zip lock back with pure alcohol and submerged the elements. I don't like touching them with anything.

Just curious, but is your driving mostly short, low speed trips, or is it mostly highway, or is it a blend?

Just be careful to avoid touching the element -- its very fragile. Also, don't skimp and use the rubbing alcohol under the sink -- it has moisturizers and will do more harm than good.

It sounds like a classic case of pinging. Generally, the knock sensor in a modern car can !Removed! timing when this happens to the point that is almost unnoticeable, but if your combustion chamber has a heavy layer of carbon deposits then it can raise your compression to a level that is beyond the range of the sensor to compensate. If you run cheap low grade gas and make lots of short trips, you can get carbon deposits -- even in a Lexus. Because higher octane gas is more resistant to pinging, you are able to "fix" the problem by running that. I can think of a few potential remedies. (1) Keep running premium gas -- classic case of "Doctor, it hurts when I move my arm like this." Doctor: "Then don't move your arm like that." (2) The knock sensor may be bad and need replacing (rarely happens). (3) Clean out the carbon deposits. In my '73 VW, I can pour a *small* amount of water down the carbs with the car running and the resultant steam will blast the deposits off the wall of the combustion chamber. It's actually kind of fun to do. In a modern car, you are left with a using various additives. My favorite is Sea Foam. The easy, but less ostentatious, method is to put a bottle in the tank when you fill up with gas. The slightly more difficult way is to tap into the brake servo line and let the car suck up the Sea Foam until you see white smoke come from the exhaust -- then let the car sit for 15-20 minutes and drive it until it stops smoking -- and trust me, it will put out more smoke than James Bond's Aston Martin for a few minutes. Your neighbors will love it.

First of all, mixing grades is not a problem. At the Chevron station where I occasionally have light maintenance performed, the mechanic told me that they only have two types of underground storage tanks -- one for regular and one for premium. If you by the mid-grade, the pump is actually pulling from both tanks and mixing the fuel for you. As for the correct grade to buy, this thread pretty much beat the topic to death. I think it is a fair summary to say the your car will run fine with regular fuel, but that the 330s may have been designed to use premium.

Thanks. Looks like they changed the wording from 05 to 06. I wonder if they changed the fuel mapping as well?

I drive German, my wife drives Lexus. It's all a matter of personal taste. I appreciate the Lexus because it's well-made and for all the complaints about transmissions and such I spend much less time worrying over and working on the Lexus than any of the German cars. Oh, and my wife is no soccer mom, she drove a Boxster and an SLK before the Lexus and she prefers the 330 hands down. Also, if you're comparing the RX330 to the M6 or the 4.6L X5 (cars that are in your sig), then I would hardly call it a fair comparison in terms of handling or power. For what it is, the 330 is a very good machine for the money. Don't get me wrong, I like Lexus (I just bought one for my wife), but it lacks character, or soul, if you wish. As I live close to Japan, there is 90% ratio of Jap. cars. They are nice, comfortable, reliable, but smth is not there, if you know what I mean. You said you wife drove Mercedes and she didn't like it. I would say MB is totally junk. SLK is poorly built and doesn't look good, compared to Lexus. ( like Germans say: why do you want to buy a MB? It is for old people. Are you old?) But man, BMW is truly an ultimate driving machine. After BMW you can only drive a brand new BMW. I should not be the ultimate arbiter of automotive taste as my favorite car is still the old '73 VW Thing that I drive whenever I can. Having said that, I've named every German car that I've owned, but I can't quite bond with the Lexus -- I've even told my wife that I looked in the RX's headlights and I did not see a soul, so we agree to a point.

I drive German, my wife drives Lexus. It's all a matter of personal taste. I appreciate the Lexus because it's well-made and for all the complaints about transmissions and such I spend much less time worrying over and working on the Lexus than any of the German cars. Oh, and my wife is no soccer mom, she drove a Boxster and an SLK before the Lexus and she prefers the 330 hands down. Also, if you're comparing the RX330 to the M6 or the 4.6L X5 (cars that are in your sig), then I would hardly call it a fair comparison in terms of handling or power. For what it is, the 330 is a very good machine for the money.

If you get a chance, could you please type in the whole paragraph re: octane? I'd like to compare it to the 2005 version that I quoted above. Thanks, Ben

Until someone either does back to back dynos on the same car or we get someone with knowledge of the stock fuel maps, we just won't know for sure. In the mean time, I'm using premium just be safe for the reasons I stated above.

Comments interspersed below:

In general I don't disagree with you, but when I see the high compression ratio on this car and the fact that a 3.3L V6 is having to move 5500 lbs, then I err on the side of treating it like a high performance engine. I've also had ECU's remapped on my turbo VWs so I understand that not all cars are designed to take advantage of high octane gas, but when I read this: it makes me wonder if the car doesn't have fuel maps for higher octane gas but will operate fine on lower octane via the knock sensor. I appreciate your measured response since I was a little snarky before, but I still wonder what octane rating is incorporated in the RX330 fuel maps.