Originally Posted by kenblasko

Have you tried auto-rx? I have used it on 3 cars '95 C280 135K miles, '96 Maxima 127K miles, and a '00 Passat 105k miles. When looking at the cams on my C280 after treatment, all signs of varnish are gone. The C280 filter looked as if the varnish had been transfered to the filter like the testimonial / pics on the auto-rx site of the MB S500 after the cleaning phase. The Maxima filter (which is an extremely small filter) had noticeable thick dark sludge coating the filter after the cleaning phase. I'm still on the rinse phase and will cut the filter open when I'm done with the cleaning phase to see if there is any additional sludge. I didn't notice any sludge on the VW filters and its color looked similar to the C280 but a bit darker after the cleaning phase. I used a roto-zip tool with a metal circular blade to cut the Maxima and VW metal shells from the filters. Although my C280 had no noticeable ticking sound, I do believe the engine runs quieter. It seems that my normal idle is up slightly on the VW (760 ish to 780 ish). And on my Maxima, my overall mpg appears to have increased by almost 1 mpg to about 24.5.