I took one look at the e-mail, forwarded by a friend, and dismissed it as a scam.
"A new wonder fuel (whether it be petrol or diesel) tablet called the MPG Cap, is launching tonight … Save as much as 17 percent on your monthly fuel bill, yes 17 percent. Imagine the hype, now everyone wants this product, blah, blah …"
The e-mail contained a photo of a blister pack of what looked like multi-vitamins.
And the clincher for me was the fact that the so-called miracle pill is sold via a network of distributors.
| You literally pop a pill in the tank when you fill up and it dissolves in 10 minutes |
Typical, I thought. A bunch of slick con artists are capitalising on consumers' despair at the price of fuel, with the promise of popping a pill in the tank and making our cars more fuel efficient.
Yeah, right.
Continues Below ↓
I recently read a warning on a US consumer site about such fuel-saving devices.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has tested more than 100 "gas-saving" products and has apparently not found any product "that significantly improves gas mileage".
Some of the gadgets may even damage a car's engine or increase exhaust emissions, the EPA found.
| The more I researched this product, the more I reconsidered my outright dismissal |
One product the EPA has registered, but not tested, is the MPG-Cap, marketed by Fuel Freedom International of Florida, US, in 200 countries. It is said to create a micro-thin coating on the inside of the combustion chamber in the engine, allowing fuel to burn more efficiently.
You literally pop a pill in the tank when you fill up and it dissolves in 10 minutes.
The claimed result is an astonishing 75 percent reduction in environmentally unfriendly emissions - the original aim of the product - and an average of 10 percent increase in fuel efficiency, plus an unspecified increase in performance.
This at a cost of R25 per pill. A 40-litre tank would take half a pill per full tank, and an 80-litre tank a full pill.
On cars with bigger fuel tanks, it works out to a claimed saving of around R60 a tank, after the cost of the pill, it's claimed.
It all sounds too good to be true, and in my experience, this is usually the case. Tom McLaughlin of the US automotive consumer group AAA told ABC's Good Morning America show that it had tested the MPG-Cap and found no improvement while driving at 55km/h) and only a 4 percent gain at 105km/h.
But the more I researched this product, the more I reconsidered my outright dismissal.
Extensive testing of the product in several independent labs has confirmed the improvement in fuel economy - albeit with widely ranging results, depending on the vehicle - and reduction in emissions.
And a number of journalists have done unscientific tests with the product and found it to work.
In August 2006, NBC journalists, describing themselves as "big time sceptics" tested the pill in several tanks of petrol and were astonished by the results.
By the third tank, consumption had improved significantly.
Apparently one should only expect results from the third tank of fuel.
The product only recently made its way to South Africa, and there are 200 distributors countrywide, most of them in KwaZulu-Natal, as the country's first distributor, Tim Dunstan-Smith, is based in Pietermaritzburg. "Fuel savings vary greatly," Dunstan-Smith says.
"And there doesn't seem to be any predictive pattern."
Surely use of the pills could have motor manufacturers repudiating warranty claims?
No, says Dunstan-Smith.
"The pills do not alter the composition of the fuel, so they are not fuel additives. Fuel Freedom International has $2-billion (about R15-billion) public liability insurance to cover such claims, but in two years, with 230 000 distributors worldwide, there hasn't been a single claim of engine damage."
So why the distributor route?
"It's the fastest way to get it around the world," Dunstan-Smith says.
"And besides, this little pack of pills would be unlikely to fly off hardware shop shelves if sold in the normal way."
I intend to do my own tests, and would appreciate hearing from those who are currently using this product - but are not distributors.
For more information about the pills, SMS the words "fuel pill" to 083 501 7286.
- This article was originally published on page 8 of Cape Times on May 12, 2008
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