Refurbished oil

I use Grease Monkey, which are franchised to local owners. It is a regional company and not located in all states.

Those same Democrats that took the house and senate?

Is it a common problem where people put the wrong fluids in the wrong

Putting the wrong type of fluid in the wrong place is a mistake made more often by do-it-yourselfers than by service facilities, although it does happen. The most common mistakes are putting windshield washer fluid in the radiator overflow reservoir or coolant in the windshield washer reservoir, and mixing up transmission fluid and engine oil.

The damage from the winshield washer and coolant mixup is pretty minor while the engine and transmission mixup can result in a ruined engine and/or transmission.

An automotive technician has to be able to understand the customer's concerns, diagnose, repair, and/or maintain the vehicle, and communicate what was done to the vehicle. The mere ability to do an oil change is probably not enough to get hired at a dealership.

Their web site says there's not a single Grease Monkey franchise in Missouri. That's too bad. In my city of 100,000 there are 4 Jiffy Lubes.

Actually all of the people lodging complaints claimed they had changed their oil regularly, and most claimed to have receipts for most of the oil changes. The site referenced by Joe Lauton is run by trail lawyers, so there is an inherent bias to over dramatize problems. However, no other manufacturer has near the number of Consumer complaints about sludge damaged engines that Toyota has. I am sure 3000 mile oil changes with good quality oil would have reduced the number of complaints, but do you believe Toyota owners are less likely to change their car's oil regularly than Nissan, GM, or Ford owners? And as I recall it, Toyota used to specify 7500 mile oil changes for normal service and 5000 miles for severe service. I know that today, Toyota specifies 5000 miles across the board for oil changes. Toyota clearly had a problem with sludge and trying to smear the people who suffered from it is not fair.

How often? My SO's new RAV4 has an oil change reminder. It starts blinking at 4500 miles and goes solid at 5000 miles. I'll make sure she changes her oil at those intervals. I changed it for the first time at just short of

3000 miles. I noticed some metal in the filter. Nothing to bad, but it did worry me a little bit. The oil that came out of the car looked fine. The oil cap and user's guide both recommended either 5W20 or 0W20. Interestingly, Toyota doesn't provide instructions for changing the oil in the Owner's Guide. You have to go to the Repair Manuel for instruction. It was very easy to change the oil. The small size of the filter worried me. I used to much larger filters. However, my Nissan truck uses a similar sized filter. I cut the Toyota filter open, and it is the strangest looking filter I have looked at ( picture is at ). It still bothers me that the engine in the RAV4 requires routine valve adjustment. I assume Toyota gets away with this because most people don't actually have the valves adjusted and therefore don't have to pay for it. Regards,

Ed White

I am not sure this is a good move. I recently cut open a bunch of filters and was not overly impressed with the Mobil 1 Filter. It was a decent filter, but nothing special.

There is a picture of the cuts of a Toyota OEM filter at

. There is a picture of the guts of a a Mobil 1 FIlter (not for a Toyota) at . Ed

I have a friend who made his own oil extractor. He uses an old 10 lb freon can. He pulls a vaccum on the can using a vaccum pump. There is a tee and a valve on the can. There is a long line hooked to the can. The end of the line has a stiff section. He routes the line down the tube used for the dip stick. After the line is in place at the bottom of the tube he opens the valve and the oil is sucked out of the oil pan. I've seen him use it and it works better than I expected. I told him I would be worried oil was left in the sump, so he pulled the drain plug and proved to me that there was almost no oil left. I was surprised. I would still worry that there were solids left in the oil pan. I did borrow the device to suck automatic transmission fluid out of my automatic transmission when I was changing the fluid. It worked very well for this application.

Regards,

Ed White

Your friend's extractor sounds like a better setup than the ones you buy, and it probably will last a lot longer.

Interesting! Too bad there isn't an easy, practical way to determine media pore size. I suppose other ways to measure filter performance would be to compare particulate size and volume in the oil and to see if there are any significant differences in oil pressure using the different filters.

Not one single person that ACTUALLY had their oil changed at the prescribed intervals ever developed Sludge.

Change your oil, and you won't have a problem.

Saying this doesn't make it true.

No other manufacturer has Customers complaining about sludge in anything like the numbers Toyota has. How do you explain that? Are Toyota owners especially negligent in maintaining there cars? Are Toyota owners especially prone to lying? My SO was terrible at maintain Her old Plymouth Grand Voyager. More than once she went well past 10,000 miles between oil changes and often drove in stop and go traffic. Despite sporadic maintenance, the engine was still running OK when the transmission failed at around 200K miles. My Sister's 1997 Civic is running fine at 150K miles despite having the oil changed at 7500 mile intervals (that is when the oil change indicator reminds Her). I know of many other people who are not religious about oil changes, yet none have developed sludge. I have read that some Chrysler products also suffer from sludge, but I never hear about Chrysler problems to the same extent as for Toyota products. So even if all the people complaining are lying and/or have fake receipts, you still have to explain why this seems to be a problem that is more significant for Toyotas than other brands.

Hopefully Toyota has corrected the design problem that made their engines especially prone to sludge formation. However, I plan to make sure my SO's new oil changed at the required intervals.

Ed

Yes, they claimed to have changed their oil on a proper schedule. And they did have receipts.

However, they lied on the first point, and created bogus receipts on the second point. When we are talking about thousands of dollars for a new engine, then some people will lie about anything.

Based on the posts you have made over the past few years on this forum, I would say that you are definitely not qualified to evaluate oil filters. But I would like to know what specifically you dislike about the Mobil 1 filter as compared to the Toyota filter. Whatever it is, it is certainly not clear from looking at the web pages you posted.

There are plenty of very good air compressor powered fluid extractors on the market, but they are not cheap.

The one I used had a hand pump to build up pressure, and it did not work well after a few times. It only cost about $49.

So every person with a sludged engine claiming to have changed their oil regularly is a liar? And why are only Toyota owners lying and creating bogus receipts? I know there are complaints against a few other brands, but nothing like the fire storm around certain Toyota models. Your assertion that all these people are liars and cheats is simply not believable. It is far more likely that certain Toyota engines are abnormally susceptible to sludge formation than your claim that hundreds (thousands) of Toyota owners are lying, especially compared to owners of most other brands of cars and even other Toyota models. 15 years ago I never heard of a problem with Toyota engines being sludge prone. Did Toyota owners suddenly become less maintenance conscious and/or more dishonest?

Regards,

Ed White

"Mark A" wrote in message news:Y8adnf79yf2xYvnYnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com...

I don't claim to be an oil filter expert, but I do have opinions (see

). The Toyota filter is radically different than the Mobil 1 Filter I cut open. There is nothing "wrong" with the Mobil 1 filter, but there nothing special about it either. I don't have a way to measure the characteristics of the media, but in terms of appearance, feel, and density, the media in the Mobil 1 filter is similar to most other better quality conventional filters, many that are much less expensive. Mobil doesn't claim a filtering efficiency that is much different that a Purolator Pure One Filter, or even the more expensive FRAM filter. The other elements of the filter are not particularly high end. It is my opinion that the Mobil 1 Filter is over priced. The OEM Toyota filter didn't use paper at all. The media was a hard substance that was formed (molded) over a nylon core that created passages in the media. The filter can, base plate, relief valve, and anti-drain back valve were all better designed and made (in my opinion) than the corresponding elements in the Mobil 1 Filter. Of course I am comparing a Mobil 1 M1-210 Filter to a Toyota Filter. These are not interchangeable. It might be that the Mobil 1 equivalent to the Toyota OEM filter is completely different. However, I suspect that if I cut open the Mobil 1 equivalent to the Toyota OEM Filter, I'd find it to be very similar to the M1-210 filter. When I changed the oil in my SO's RAV4, I decided on the Purolator PureOne filter. After cutting open the Toyota OEM filter, I've decided at the next oil change I'll go back to the Toyota OEM Filter. I do wonder if it will be the same as the Japanese filter that came on the car. For my Nissan, I ordered a case of Nissan filters. They were Japanese made filters, but weren't much different than the better quality US made filters from Purolator or Wix.

If you are looking for a well made synthetic media filter, you might look at the Amsoil Ea filter line. I cut one of these open, and it was a well made filter with unusual media. Amsoil claims really good efficiency for these filters, but they are pricey (see

). The Denso filter is also a good looking filter, but they are hard to find. Ed

ExxonMobil does claim that the Mobil 1 filter uses a synthetic fiber blend filter media. As usual, you comments are completely inaccurate. Insofar as to your opinion about which filters are better made, you have absolutely no facts or credentials to back up your "opinions."

Here are the exact claims from the Mobil webstie:

"- Removes more contaminants than conventional filters using an advanced synthetic fiber blend filter media.

- High-capacity design stores more contaminants (two times the capacity of the leading brand).

- Reduces resistance to oil flow while improving filter efficiency.

- Withstands up to five times the normal system operating pressure."

"Mobil 1 Extended Performance Oil Filters contain synthetic fibers instead of the typical cellulose filter media. With a 99.2 percent efficiency rating (under SAE J1858 Multi-Pass Efficiency Test), the Mobil 1 filter is much more efficient than a typical oil filter, removing more particles per pass through the filter. In addition, the synthetic fibers in the Mobil 1 filter have less resistance to oil flow, reducing the potential for the filter to restrict the flow of oil to your engine."

All of the above quotes taken from the following website (and associated links on the web page):

I will agree that some modern Toyota engines are more susceptible to sludge if you don't change the oil at recommended intervals as compared to other manufacturer's engines where you also don't change your oil at recommended intervals (and also compared to older Toyota engines).

However, if you change your oil at recommended intervals, you will not get sludge in a modern Toyota engine or any other major manufacturer's engine.

Hopefully the above explanation demonstrates the errors in your "logic."

Considering the number of vehicles that Toyota sells, and the likelihood that somewhere between 5-10% of owners (especially women are not educated in auto-maintenance) hardly ever change their oil (this is a very conservative number), it is surprising that there are not even more sludge problems than have been reported.

snip

Even from 10 feet away, there is no way to tell if the

1. Is it correct that any of the above, at worst, could only result in a loss of oil onto the ground or garage floor and would be detected by the low oil light at worst? The engine would not be damaged.
2. Are you a fan of using the self threading repair drain plugs?

jl