Oil sludge elimination/prevention?

Own a Chrysler Sebring with the V6 2.7L engine. I've read several complaints about how prone to oil sludge buildup these engines are (and the not so decent position of Chrysler corp. of not admitting the problem or solving it). Mine is 58,000 miles and want to prevent and/or eliminate possible oil sludge in the engine. I can see some of this gunk like substance inside the oil filler cap. Car is running good, no noises so far, just a coolant leak near a sensor assy at top left side of engine that I'm going to have repaired/checked.

Any clues on how to eliminate and prevent oil sludge in these famous engines.

Beachrunner

Reply to
Beachrunner
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1)For best protection, use a 5W-30 or 10W-30 full synthetic motor oil such as Mobil 1, Amsoil, Redline or Pennzoil Platinum Plus. These are expensive top of the line oils, but worth it compared to the alternative. You should be able to easily go 5000 miles between oil changes with these oils; perhaps further depending on your local climate and driving style. Use a good filter such as Purolator PureOne, WIX, NAPA Gold, Motorcraft, Amsoil EO, or Fram XG series *only*. Filters are not all the same quality - stay from the cheap ones. 2) Other good oil choices would be Quaker State Q advanced synthetic (good for about 4000 miles in my 2.7); Valvoline Synpower or Valvoline MaxLife Synthetic. 3) For non-synthetic oils, Castrol GTX and Havoline come to mind as well-proven oils. These should be changed at around 3000 miles in this engine. These oils will go alot farther in other engines, but the 2.7 is hard on oil. Theses same oils would easily go 7500 miles in a Honda Civic. But not in a 2.7. 4) Maintain the cooling system ! This is important to minimize the risk of water pump failure or failure of the water pump seal(s). Since the water pump is inside the engine, a coolant leak will leak into the oil and will create mud-like sludge in no time flat. The water pump and it's impeller were built around the coolant. Use either Mopar Long Life coolant (orange stuff - but it is NOT the same as Dexcool which is also orange), or Zerex G-05 (sames stuff as the Mopar). Do NOT use any other coolant. If the cooling system has been ignored, have it thoroughly flushed and re-filled with 50/50 coolant/distilled water. 5) Methods of getting rid of sludge are controversial. Solvent flushes will definitely clean some of the sludge and varnish. But they are harsh, and may accelerate wear in the main and rod bearings. And it may also cause large sized pieces of sludge to dislodge and potentially block off a narrow oil passage - thus creating a worse problem.

Many of the additives sold in auto parts stores are useless.

I am currently working with a gentle long-term internal engine cleaner called Auto-Rx. Inside my oil cap and the little bit that I can see down there looks pretty clean. But my PCV hoses and heat exchanger regularly produce little bits of coke and tar, which tells me that just a few inches from my oil filler cap, things may not be quite so rosy. I've just started it and I don't know how well it work on my engine. I still have a couple of months to go before I'm finished. I am monitoring it with oil analysis, dissection of the oil filters and compression readings. I may pull the valve covers off for inspection.

You can read about Auto-RX here :

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Here is a very interesting photo documentation of an Auto-Rx cleaning of a sludged engine :

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Phil

Reply to
Phil T

Use synthetic oil, a good filter and change every 3000 miles.

Coasty

Reply to
Coasty

If you go to a synth., don't just suddenly switch over. Either put in

1/4 qt. of Marvel Mystery Oil or Sea Foam (or possibly Phil's Auto-Rx according to its instructions - see below) to do a controlled gradual cleanout of accumulated sludge over several successive oil changes (changing filter *every* time). Alternatively you could put 1 qt. synth./4 qts. dino first oil change with new filter, 2 qts. synth./3 qts. dino with new filter at 1000 miles, 3 qt. synth./2 qts. dino with new filter at 2000 miles, etc. until you're switched over - or when you get to 4 qts. synth./1 qt. dino, continue with that ratio forever after that at your decided-on change interval, new filter each time.

Can also get Ford's Motorcraft branded G-05 at Ford dealers. It's bright yellow like the Zerex G-05.

My opinion too. Also synthetic oils can do the same thing if switched over full strength suddenly - not everyone agrees with that - but that is my opinion - seen it first hand.

Marvel Mystery Oil and Sea Foam, however, work.

OP - you don't say what year your Sebring is. If it's, IIRC, '00 or earlier, check to see if the PCV hose has a cylindrical metal object with two small coolant hoses coming out of it - it's a heat exchanger added to prevent reduce condensation/buildup/clogging by sludge of the PCV hose. If yours has that, then good. If not, order the replacement hose with heat exchanger - let us know if you need to know how to plumb it up (simple).

My '99 Concorde with 2.7 is approaching 170k miles and running great. Bought it used at 58k miles. Using Castrol GTX with 1/4 qt. MMO and Pure One? filter every 3.5k miles on average (changing filter every time). I do a lot of highway driving (400 miles a week daily commute) which also helps keep down sludge. I also replaced the PCV hose with the new one with heat exchanger.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

Yes, use synthetic oil and change at the intervals suggested in your owner's manual.

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

Or you can ignore the OWT and just switch over. Make your next change after a 1,000 miles if you are really worried about the synthetic magically loosening up existing sludge (very unlikely), but that will serve only to give you peace of mind, your engine could care less. I've changed several engines to sythetic with 50K or so on them with nary a problem.

But this is sort of like saying you should only rotate radial tires front to back and not swap sides. Some things just die hard...

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

Just passing on a few things I learned while working in a major's research lab in my youth with some updates I have learned from the lab guys over the years.

Assuming one is using a decent detergent motor oil, the number one cause of sluge is water. This is typically associated with a motor used in cold weather without getting the oil hot enough to burn off the water. The water can form acids resulting in direct attacks on rings and bearings and can speed the formation of sludge.

One wants the oil to neturalize the acid and hold all the solids in suspension. This is not an easy task, but modern oils can do a very good job, especially some of the better pure systhetic oils such as Mobil 1.

If I drive in cold wet weather and have lots of short trips and lots of idling, I would want to change that oil more frequently, even a good synthetic. If I took mostly longer trips, and knew that my oil got hot enough to burn off the water, extended oil changes, up to 15,000 miles or more with Synthetic oil, can be most reasonable.

Those motors that are most prone to sludge formation are typically motors that have poor designs, usually in the head areas, that run too cool, thus promote sludge formation even though the block is getting up to running temperature. Also motor designs that don't promote proper venting of the water vapor can be a motor with sludge issues.

In this case Synthetic oil and reasonable oil change schedules are called for. Toyota seems to have gone this way.

Typically, a good detergent oil should remove sludge over time if changed frequently enough, although I have resorted to a specific solvent detergent additive to remove solid black formations in the head area of a Ford 6 that never had the oil changed in 100,000 miles, but don't recommend that for a motor you have not abussed to the point of needing a rebuild anyhow.

These have been presented to me as general statements based on extensive lab tests, but I don't mean to suggest that this is all there is to it.

Richard.

Reply to
Richard

What did you learn about running a car for 50K or so miles on regular oil and then switching to synthetic? Have you ever seen this cause a problem? I haven't, but the old wives tales about this persist. Do you have any data on this?

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

You omitted where I said "Also synthetic oils can do the same thing if switched over full strength suddenly - not everyone agrees with that - but that is my opinion - seen it first hand."

So your personal experience establishes fact (and I am to ignore when other people have had problems related to switching over, but you have never had a problem doing so, therefore...), while my personal experience constitutes an old wives tale.

The only drug addicts I've ever talked to said they never died from an overdose, therefore drugs don't cause people to die. :)

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

The rule is that if you are not prepared to change out the seals, don't change the type of lubricant, and the longer those seals have been in service the more relevant this is. If you are not a DIYer who is prepared to change them out (or working with a very high dollar engine and don't care about the labor bill) save synthetic oil for when you have a new or reman engine to work with. If you are nursing an old car with no ACV along out of poverty as I have had to, use whatever oil the previous owner did, just change it regularly.

I use whatever oil is cheapest in the old cars I drive, except I use an ashless dispersant oil in air cooled engines like Corvairs and VWs, and a straight weight diesel oil in Detroits-although I do not own a Detroit-powered truck, it's important to use single weight oils only in them. Do you know the reason?

Reply to
Bret Ludwig

I would assume because they do not contain VI's that are relatively unstable and do not have very good lubricating properties - so they are diluting the "robustness"/stability/much better lubricating properties of the base oil.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

Why do you think changing oil type will harm the seals?

No, what is your reasoning?

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

Don't know about the single weight thing, it is important to use high detergent package oils in diesels to mitigate acid formation in the crankcase, and the high detergent oils I know about (Delo) are all single weight.

you can use high detergent diesel oil in gasoline engines if you use a larger oil filter. Natural Gas fired automobile engines do this for the same reasons (acid formation)

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

I have personal experience, but no lab guy information on this issue. Early versions of Mobil 1 may have caused issues with gaskets, I myself experienced some oil seepage past a gasket in a car or two back in the 70's when I switched to 5W-20 Mobil 1. Today, Mobil 1 offers various formulations and all are very different than the product offered in the 70's and 80's. I switched our 98 RAV4 to Mobil 1 5W-30 last year with 60,000 miles on the clock, when I picked it up for my 18 year old, and there has been no seepage issue at all. It has helped clear out the gel that was starting to build up from the prior owner's use of the vehicle with conventional oil and too long oil changes in very cold upstate NY.

Richard.

Reply to
Richard

Two cycle Detroits have holes in the bottom of the cylinder liner for air intake. Multi viscosity oils don't make it past the holes as well and the upper bores wear much faster.

Reply to
Bret Ludwig

Is this a recommendation from the manufacturer? We ran 3-53 and 3-71 Detroit's in log skidders years ago and never had trouble with multi-grade oils. The straight weights are just too hard to get started in the winter, even with the propane block heaters.

I've never heard this one before with respect to DD engines.

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

Hey Phil, thanks a lot

Plenty of useful information.

I've already read about Auto Rx and saw the pictures posted there. It seems to be a pretty outstanding achievement for some not so advertised product.

Anyway Auto Rx was the closest solution that came into consideration after reading about many other methods including the BILSTEIN R2000 flush machine (haven't found a service station offering that flush close to my area, Boynton Beach Fl.)

I'm looking forward to hear about the results of your test using Auto Rx.

Thank you again.

Beachrunner

Reply to
Beachrunner

Nice addition Bill,

mine is 2002 Sebring sedan LXi with 58,000 miles on it.

Thanks

Beachrunner.

Bill Putney ha escrito:

Reply to
Beachrunner

Can you describe more fully your test scenario? Engine type, prior history, etc.?

I reviewed this web site and remain unconvinced. This was obviously a seriously undermaintained engine. I'll bet that a few regular oil changes with a quality oil would have had much the same effect. This sort of test isn't really a test at all as there is no control. You'd need to take at least two engines starting in the same condition and then change the oil at that same intervals and use the magic elixir in one and not the other.

My Chrysler 3.3L in my 96 Grand Voyager was cleaner than the after photos on this web site after 178,000 miles and I never flushed the engine, I just used Mobil 1 with 5,000 mile change intervals up to

150,000 and then 10,000 mile intervals from then until the accident that totaled the van.

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

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