Symptoms:
I looked in the hole where the oil filler cap goes. There's a dark brown gel all over everything. I think this is sludge.
I've had this car since new. I have the car serviced regularly according to the maintenance schedule.
What do I do now? Has anyone been in this situation?
Thank you, AABob
Have a look at the plugs, which may be the solution to the rough running, not the sludging. I recently took a car for statutory inspection. It ran perfectly on the way there. Whilst in the inspection it developed a misfire, and the engine attention light came on. It was nothing more than dirty plugs!
In my opinion VW are guilty of extending the service intervals (oil changes) beyond the capability of even modern oils. Personally I use "fleet" oils from bulk. They have the requisite specifications and if they're good enough for commercial vehicles, with the rough treatment they receive, they're good enough for my vehicle. The advertising hype, and prices for "premium" oils is a load of ballyhoo, far better to change your oil more often as a way of avoiding sludge.
Forget flushing oils also. They will come out dirty, but the main body of sludge needs a full strip to remove, it's far too persistent to rinse out. I'd change the oil, drive it for a couple of thousand miles, give it another change and forget the extended mileage nonsense.
You have only to see the numbers of persons experiencing the modern phenomenon of sludging becoming a problem area, then compare it with the extended mileage regimes in order to identify the root cause.
Hope this helps put things in perspective a little, as well as helping.
Exhaust odor may mean your ruining your catalytic converter
Driving with CEL on for extended period is know to ruin catalytic converter
STOP ENGINE NOW (or blinking CEL/MIL on many vehicles) basically means "warning, catalytic converter damage imminent".
Rough idle... so your saying your engine is definitely not running correctly, while driving or idling, and it's to the point of smelling it in the exhaust. This, I expect has led you to.
Sounds like you need to get your car fixed for the 4 symptoms you've listed. Looking down the oil cap means nothing. If your dip stick shows oil level correct and it doesn't look like a milk shake from water/coolant in it, your fine. Don't know what you have for mileage on it, but about any 11 year old car will have some brown tarnish looking coating on the top end. It's not sludge. Sludge is what you dig out of the lower pockets... places where it settles out of the oil. You may just need a tune-up, or some component has failed, (or a combination of problems) which can be found by diagnosing the problem. Codes that can be read from the ecm are very useful for this, but do not tell you what the fix is unless you want to blindly throw parts at it and hope you hit the problem. But if your trying to fix this yourself (often the case for people asking questions here), start with posting the codes here and be very specific about symptoms. Unfortunately, a typical DIY code reader isn't enough because you often need to look at some of the engine data.
Also, the V6 engines aren't as sludge prone as the 1.8Ts. Sludge is actually not a goop but more of a cristalline substance. And roughg running isn't from sludge unless it's happened for so long something else broke.
Thanks for the tips. As a follow up, here's the latest: The car is at the dealer now. He says I probably need a new engine. He wants $500 to remove the oil pan and other covers to fully diagnose the cause. He says the sludge is either due to me not changing the oil or from a faulty part inside the V6 engine. On average I change my oil every 7500 miles.
What do you think of this?
I think it sounds insane... unless there's far more information you're not sharing...
Is the "sludge" your describing supposed to be causing quote:
Maybe someone else can chime in here... what would be the "faulty part inside the V6 engine" to cause sludge??? I have no VR6 experience. But given that it's a VW, I'd guess all your external rubber stuff is junk if not replaced yet. Prime for vacuum leaks galore. I can imagine many things to cause the symptoms you've described. I can't think of any symptoms of oil sludge, except a seized or knocking engine due to lack of lubrication. Sludge doesn't cause a problem unless is blocks a passage. But if you really do have a sludge problem... maybe you want to find out how much more you'll be spending on top of the $500 and consider junking it sooner than later. And no doubt, if you've been going that far between oil changes and it's been not running right... misfire really causes fuel and crap (those nasty emissions) to build up in your oil. Sounds like a good way to make sludge. Unless your are getting coolant into you oil, but your description didn't sound like that. Pictures of the "sludge" would be nice! Good luck with it!
Is your car a turbo? The extended service intervals for turbo's were a mistake; the oil gets hotter on turbo's and the combination of that and
5000+ miles on the oil caused a lot of them to gell and crater. Like others have said, the gell itself isn't a real problem. Whatever caused the gell/sludge may have caused other problems.You can treat the sludge problem with a high detergent additive, like Marvel Mystery Oil or others on the market. I've heard of using tranny fluid to clean an engine out. These are to be added to the oil and run for a SHORT TIME ONLY. Goot Luck with you Dubber. HDK
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