Possible Carbon Buildup? How do I Seafoam?
 

Hi everyone, my wife has a 2011 Altima Hybrid with about 80,000 miles on it. The car has been nice but I have read about possible carbon buildup problems with these engines. When I first start the car, it fires up and then the RPMs drop to where the engine feels like it is stumbling and almost ready to shut off. This lasts not even a second but I still don't like it.

On the road with light acceleration, there is a slight ticking noise and the Altima kind of sounds like a diesel car at idle and it isn't perfectly smooth.

I know my symptoms are not really bad but I want to stop any headaches down the road right now so I have questions about how I should remedy this.

I am going to put Seafoam in the crankcase and I have read the instructions on how to do it for a regular Altima which include driving it at high RPMs for a half an hour and needing to crank the car awhile before it starts for the first time after the Seafoam treatment. So how would I do this for my Altima? I don't have an RPM gauge and it isn't manual so do I keep it in lower gear and drive at a recommended speed? Plus we have a push button ignition. Do I just hold the button in and it will crank until it fires?

Any help other than "Seafoam is snake oil" would be awesome!

Re: Possible Carbon Buildup? How do I Seafoam?
 

Just add Seafoam to your gas tank instead of trying to inject it into the intake. You can also add it to your oil in the crankcase to cut any buildup off of your lifters (the "ticking" noise). If the ticking noise remains, try putting Marvel Mystery oil in the crankcase about 500 miles before your scheduled oil change. If it remains after that, you have an internal engine problem (more than likely a bad lifter or cam).

You can inject Seafoam into the intake via a vacuum hose connection but the engine WILL smoke heavily, try to quit running and generally cause you some problems and, unless you have done something similar before, you will more than likely give it too much at one time and stall the engine.

As a side note, if you use good oil, change it often (5,000 miles or so), drive the car on a trip of 20 miles or so once a week (to get the engine warmed up) and use a good, top brand of gasoline, you will rarely have a problem with an engine that has less than 120,000 miles other than the throttle body needing to be cleaned which is what I think your problem is given the symptoms you described.