Sludge

Personally I think 5k to 6k should be sufficient to prevent gellation (or sludge), but apparently this is not the case for some Toyota engines. I do know that my younger Sister has always had her oil changed by the normal service schedule on all the cars she has owned and has never had any sort of sludge problem. Her driving pattern is really awful (2 miles to work and home, with short trips to restaurants, stores, and maybe one longer trip a month). So far she has had no gellation problems with 3 Fords, 1 Mazda, and 1 VW. My other Sister is even worse about changing oil. At least for her current Honda, there is an oil change reminder (odometer driven). She never changes it more often that the reminder indicates. So far she has never seen any gellation problems either in over 35 years of driving (2 Fords, 2 Hondas, 1 VW). I am not likely to see gellation problems since I have always been a 3000 mile oil change guy. However, my newest vehicle (a Saturn Vue) has a computer operated oil change indicator light. It supposedly takes into account several factor in determining the correct oil change interval. I plan to change the oil as indicated by this device. The vehicle is too new to have needed a second oil change (first was at

3000 miles out of habit), but I am guessing the change interval will be around 5000 miles from talking to others that have GM products with the oil change indicator light. In my life, I have only ever seen one engine that had a significant accumulation of sludge. A friend's 1978 Olds 88 with the Olds 350 accumulated a lot of waxy crap in the lifter valley. In that particular case he was using Quaker State 10W40 and changing it every 7500 miles (and he only changed the filter every other time). He drove the car about 3 miles to work one way, so I'd have thought it qualified as severe service. Even in this case, the goop was not hard to remove, and except for some sticky lifters and a bad rocker arm, there was no serious engine damage that required a complete engine replacement. After cleaning out the goop, he changed to a better quality oil and 5000 mile oil change intervals. There was no reoccurrence of the goop.

I think it does, but I am not Toyota.

This sound pretty reasonable to me.

Heck, I have had a dog chew up wiring under one of my vehicles. She laid underneath and used her paws to pull down some wires and then chewed them up. This was a Ford, so I think the dog was indicating a strong preference for a new Toyota.

Ed

CW, keep it to 5000 miles max, you'll never see trouble. As for the chewed wires, we have gotten a rash of those already. Must be coming in from the cold. If you have a garage, get rid of bird seed, pet food etc in the garage. We had a new 4Runner, knock sensor wires all chewed up. Her insurance took take of it, then 2 weeks later, it happened again. She swears its a mouse from Japan and thinks Toyota should pay for it. We also has a mouse chew into an 02 Prius, this could be real spendy. Able to fix it with no parts.

I wonder if Toyota is using especially tasty wire? And I am being serious. There is a big push (at least in my industry) to change the composition of the insulation used on wiring (mostly to remove lead stabilizers from PVC). The Japanese are always good at adopting environmental regulations, so I wonder if the newer Japanese built vehicles have the "environmentally friendly insulation." And if they do, is this more tasty that lead stabilized PVC? On the farm rats love to eat the old type rubber insulation used on heavy power cables, but I have never seen them eat any other wiring, even when it is readily available.

Ed

Ed, went all year seeing none of these and all of a sudden, we got 3 in

3 weeks. Critters are always knawing, I guess they must to keep teeth sharp and from being overgrown. Maybe some more toxic wire would be in order.

MDT, we use the 44K and are very satisfied with the increase in flow rate and fuel delivery volume increase post use. What have you experienced with

44K?

We are a BG dealer too and I'm not real impressed with lots of their stuff. A few are good, but most are just $$$ suckers.

MDTech,

Where is your dealership located? I'm trying to find a reliable Toyota mechanic, and I'd appreciate suggestions...

Thanks, V> padd>

If additives which removed sludge really worked, there would be a lot of engines with blocked oil-filters. It's better to either leave the sludge there (provided the engine is still working OK) and change your oil as indicated or strip the engine for a proper clean.

Jason

Check auto-rx.com. They require installing a new oil filter, running with their product for a few hundred miles and then changing it. For Camry V-6, repeat again. Not solvent based where it all releases at once, but similar chemistry to synthetics, so works best with conventional motor oil during treatment period. I never had sludge, but advertised to remove varnish from piston ring lands, and from the surface of engine seals. Cheap enough to try. Seems safe enough. Haven't seen any negative feedback from anyone who has actually_used_ the product, and some quite positive feedback from folks who get obsessed about engine oil. To me it was always interesting that the original market was for cleaning commercial printing presses. Jason, if you still have residual sludge in your engine, read the site information and form your own opinion.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com, Daniel M. Dreifus being of bellicose mind posted:

Will SOMEBODY who ACTUALLY intends to use AutoRX ... PLEASE pop off a valve cover and take a picture of the valve train. Then follow the treatment directions and then ..... take another picture of the same valve train FOR COMPARISON .... and POST THOSE PICTURES.

Thanks. ;^)

Already been done:

You are welcome.

-

-- Curtis Newton snipped-for-privacy@remove-me.akaMail.com

ICQ: 4899169

In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Curtis Newton being of bellicose mind posted:

Chris: Thank You!! I looked over all the photos. Of particular interest were images (Before) preARX10 and (After at 2000 miles) DSCF0005. This engine while varnished is not "sludged" up with the kind of goop that would burry all but the cams and drive chain from view. There is some -varnish- removal from using the product.

Since hearing of this product about year ago, I emailed AutoRx asking for "same engine" progress photos. The official response I received was very defensive and a put-off. "Same engine" progress photos make a much better testimonial.

I did some Googling in the newsgroups on this Auto-Rx stuff. I never heard of it before...seems like the same 6 people keep hyping it in various newsgroups. Even the inventors name popped up broadcasting it in various newsgroups. Looked at the website and in a forum there was mostly the same people in the newsgroups who made any comments, nearly none of them ever took the valve cover off to see if it did anything.

"Philip®" spake unto the masses in news:ihPDb.7752$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:

Very interesting. rms13.com no longer seems to exist, so I am unable to see those pictures. Go to

type in rms13.com and see what it gives you.

Do you think this ARX10 stuff would fix the engine shown here?

In news:Xns945456F9111B9teggeratistop@207.14.113.17, Tegger® being of bellicose mind posted:

Tegger: My ol Prizm got oil changes in the 4-5k mile range.... not

3k miles. Minor point.

The GOOPED engine view contributed by MDT Rick is the kind of sludge accumulation (forget the varnish) I would like to test AutoRX.

Your Honda is the sort of example (very very mild) that AutoRx might be effective against. BUT.... the level of varnish present in your Honda is in NO way detrimental at the level shown.

Why should sludge removal be necessary on a vehicle that has under 70K on the clock that had normal warranty required oil changes? Do manufacture generally suggest that be done on two or three year old vehicles?

mike hunt

"Philip" wrote:

In news: snipped-for-privacy@mailcity.com, snipped-for-privacy@mailcity.com being of bellicose mind posted:

Oil servicing appropriate to the operating conditions will preclude sludge formation ... exclusive of a mechanical or materials deficiency. Need I point out again that motorcycles do not sludge up and do not have positive crankcase ventilation systems. Sludge is therefor a result of operating with contaminated oil for extended periods.

Did you try going directly to the site? It worked for me today.

Scot