The other day I dropped my car off at a European specialist shop, and while I was there, a technician was working in the engine bay of a Mk7 Golf R, cleaning out carbon deposits off the intake valves.

Q: I have a 2009 VW with gasoline direct inject and a 2.0-liter turbo engine. It recently needed the intake valves cleaned (a very costly job) after just 54,000 miles. I understand many manufacturers ...

Gasoline direct injection, or GDI, is one of the most crucial bits of technology in the modern internal combustion engine. In engines equipped with GDI, highly pressurized gasoline is sprayed directly ...

Over time and miles, your car might start to slow down. It might not accelerate as quickly as it once did; the engine may not run as smoothly as you remember, or the fuel economy may dip—but ...

While fuel-injector cleaning is often recommended by shops and dealer service centers, it probably isn’t necessary unless it’s correcting a running problem. In many cases, just using a quality ...

There are many things that can degrade your vehicle's performance over time, from a dirty air filter and low tire pressure, to fouled spark plugs and worn out plug wires. However, nothing will rob ...

The basic difference between direct injection (DI) and the port-fuel injection (PFI) systems we've become familiar with since the mid-1980s is that PFI sprays fuel into the intake manifold (behind ...

Clogged injectors can cause a myriad of issues for your engine—it needs a consistent flow of fuel to run properly. Sometimes, simply pouring a can of injector cleaner into your gas tank before a ...

Direct injection. Just about every car has it now, and those that don’t probably will in the next few years. It can add power, reduce emissions, and is a big part of why just about everybody is ...