2007 Accord V6 varnish

[JMHC]

I have been running conventional only is this Accord since new, usually Castrol GTX or Pennzoil conventional with a change or two of Valvoline conventional. I typically change the oil when the maintenance minder is at 10-15% which for me ranges 6000-6500 miles. I may have gone 7000 miles once or twice. When looking into the filler cap, it's really yellow stained. The attached pics aren't very good, it's hard to capture a good picture in the hole. Aside from the varnish, the bolt heads have are covered with black gritty grime. It runs fine and currently has 79K on it. I'm beginning to wonder if the Honda MM with conventional is a little long for oil changes. Perhaps the varnish is not an issue and I'm making an issue of nothing. I did just purchase a couple jugs of PP with the current rebate and I am going to run that the next 2 oil changes (prob to 7-7500 miles) to see if it cleans up a bit. For comparison sake, my wife's '09 RAV4 with the 2.5L I4 gets conventional, mostly Valvoline conventional every 5000 miles as specified by Toyota and hers with 73K is completely clean in the filler. I wonder if 5000 miles really is the limit for conventional not the 6-8000 miles that are typically used by the life monitors these days.

http://i47.tinypic.com/1znrh55.jpg[/IMG]]Accord filler

 

[Rolla07]

used oil analysis. Get a used oil analysis on the oil after the 6-8k miles. Judging from the oil filler cap is hard to judge from. if the uoa comes up okay i wouldnt worry about it.

 

[Maxima97]

As far as i4 accord, there is no varnish issue with 7k Dino Oci. For v6, this could be an issue. Why don't you use better oil such as motorcraft 0w20 blend or pp PU m1 sort of? Castrol GTX and Pennzoil Conventional are all group ii Dino. I won't leave in crank case for more than 5k of I suspect they leave varnish. Varnish could be just cosmetic and not affect engine performance and life. Next time remember to use better oil if you depend oil meter. To clean out these varnish, don't use additive, just use high detergent oil such as Mobil 1 Extended Performance, pp and PU. Volvoline Maxlife have high detergent and good for engine with more than 75 k. They have 5w20 which could substitute if you use in Summer. Good luck.

 

[Rolla07]

after you run the PP for 2 cycles take a comparison pic.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

A friend of mine has a 2005 Accord V6 with 85K. There's a lot of visible sludge and varnish in it.

Yet he insists on not getting the oil changed after 7K on bulk dino ...

Does yours have piston slap when cold?

 

[tig1]

By comparison this is my Fusion with over 100K at 10K OCIs. Hopefully PP will begin to clean up this varnish. Some here advocate 10K with dino, I don't. Remember where there is severe varnish, ring coking may occure. Where you have ring coking oil use goes up, etc. Varnish and coking are caused by oil oxidizing under heat.

 

[JMHC]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
A friend of mine has a 2005 Accord V6 with 85K. There's a lot of visible sludge and varnish in it.

Yet he insists on not getting the oil changed after 7K on bulk dino ...

Does yours have piston slap when cold?


No piston slap and no usage really either. At most it'll be half a quart low at 6500 miles. It seems to be a good shape, but it's just getting a bit dirty.

 

[OVERKILL]

The odds of you getting rid of that varnish now that it is there are slim to none unless you resort to some kind of manual cleaning. Artem has been trying every chemical under the sun to get his varnish, which looks very similar to yours, removed and has had pretty much zero luck.

A quality synthetic may be able to clean-up the ring-pack area, which is likely not very pretty either at this point. You'll be able to positively identify if this is working by the build-up of soft carbon in your oil filter. I went through this process on my Expedition and it took MANY OCI's for the build-up to start to taper-off and eventually stop. I started with Mobil 1 5w-20 and went through a few Petro-Canada oils before doing a few OCI's on Mobil 1 0w-40 and then several on Mobil 1 Advanced Fuel Economy 0w-30. It was during the AFE runs that the accumulation in the filters finally slowed, then stopped. The duration of this process was also over around 80,000Km, keep that in mind.

 

[demarpaint]

Don't feel bad, this is what 3K dino OCI's looked like when I got my 2000 Century. This was with about 85K miles on it.

Originally Posted By: demarpaint





Kreen 9/24/12 84,813 miles.
This is after 61 miles of Kreen.

 

[OVERKILL]

demar:

Not to detract from the point you are trying to make, but it certainly looks like the flash was able to make it in the hole on the 2nd pic and not on the first. It can be a bugger to do though, as I've had to do it myself with the Expedition. Trying to get the same light level on the valvetrain, when doing it through the fill hole is difficult.

In the 2nd pic though, the oil looks like mud! LOL!

 

[bourne]

If you havent yet, replace your PCV valve. It is located in the front valve cover. It is #9 in the following link : #9 PCV Valve Assembly

Here is the link to my Under The Valve Cover of Honda J32A1 V6 Thread. Thats right close to 100k miles. Been feeding it a diet of synblend/Full Synthetic mostly, maybe a couple of short clean up runs of dino. Currently running Pennzoil Platinum 5w20 and it seems to be cleaning some more varnish around the oil filler hole so I recommend you try that first. Or a 3k ~ 5k oci on Maxlife 5w20 should help clean some as well.

 

[demarpaint]

OVERKILL: Not the best pics for sure, I mentioned that in the thread. The second shot the oil had IIRC about 3,000 miles on it before I added the Kreen, that picture would have put the oil at 3,061 miles total. We say what oil looks like doesn't matter, that oil looked like total [censored]! I can tell you there was a big difference visually between the two shots.

 

[JMHC]

I guess I'm fishing to see others experiences with Honda J series to see if they had the same varnish or not. If not, I'm curious to see what oil was used. Finally, and this we may never know, is why Honda's mm lets it go this long. I often wonder if we are all too obsessed with varnish and maybe it really is not detrimental to engines. I doubt I would have though anything of this without reading all the varnish threads on this site.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: JMHC
I guess I'm fishing to see others experiences with Honda J series to see if they had the same varnish or not. If not, I'm curious to see what oil was used. Finally, and this we may never know, is why Honda's mm lets it go this long. I often wonder if we are all too obsessed with varnish and maybe it really is not detrimental to engines. I doubt I would have though anything of this without reading all the varnish threads on this site.


Did you read mine? LOL!

Trav has a fair amount of experience with the VCM Honda V6 (and its failings) and its propensity to accumulate varnish/sludge that can be potentially fatal. Food for thought.

 

[SatinSilver]

I remember this thread about varnish on an Accord forum:

http://www.driveaccord.net/forums/showthread.php?t=77321&highlight=varnish

 

[JMHC]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Originally Posted By: JMHC
I guess I'm fishing to see others experiences with Honda J series to see if they had the same varnish or not. If not, I'm curious to see what oil was used. Finally, and this we may never know, is why Honda's mm lets it go this long. I often wonder if we are all too obsessed with varnish and maybe it really is not detrimental to engines. I doubt I would have though anything of this without reading all the varnish threads on this site.


Did you read mine? LOL!

Trav has a fair amount of experience with the VCM Honda V6 (and its failings) and its propensity to accumulate varnish/sludge that can be potentially fatal. Food for thought.


Mine does not haveVCM.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: JMHC
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Originally Posted By: JMHC
I guess I'm fishing to see others experiences with Honda J series to see if they had the same varnish or not. If not, I'm curious to see what oil was used. Finally, and this we may never know, is why Honda's mm lets it go this long. I often wonder if we are all too obsessed with varnish and maybe it really is not detrimental to engines. I doubt I would have though anything of this without reading all the varnish threads on this site.


Did you read mine? LOL!

Trav has a fair amount of experience with the VCM Honda V6 (and its failings) and its propensity to accumulate varnish/sludge that can be potentially fatal. Food for thought.


Mine does not haveVCM.


I'm aware of that. But in respect to the idea that varnish may be harmless, I think his experience with the VCM variant is relevant.

 

[ecotourist]

I also have a 2007 V6 Honda Accord. I've changed the oil at about 10% on the oil life monitor. That's 12 changes in 95,023 Km (59,389 miles) which works out to 7919 Km or 4949 miles per change.

I've used a series of conventional oils (Mobil Super 1000 5W-20 and Castrol GTX 5W-20 mostly). I change the filter every second time just as suggested.

I looked down the oil filler opening when I changed the oil a few weeks ago and it looked quite good. No sludge for sure.

I drive in a pretty cold climate - snow on the ground 5 - 6 months per year and temperatures down to -40 occasionally. I do take 3 or more long trips (500 and 1200 Km) every year.

I've never changed the PCV valve - thought about it last fall and the dealer said they usually only change them if there's a problem.


Ecotourist

 

[stang5]

glad you posted this, your not alone. Heres my wife's 04 Accord V6 that we've had since new. I kept the OCI at 4k miles with name bramd 5w20 conventional thinking it would keep the valve train spotless but thats not the case. At 30k miles I replaced the PCV valve and ran an ARX treatment and just recently started using lube control to help with the varnish. 1st picture was taken at 50K miles, 2nd picture at 60K miles and the last picture at 75K miles. The car currently has 80k miles. PCV valve in these cars are not suppose to be replace as part of maintenance and they cost about $30.

 

[buster]

Just another reasons to spend the extra money on a synthetic.