95 Cutlass 3.1 intake repair Valvoline MaxLife

[bxd20]

This is my second UOA after having done the intake gaskets with Fel Pro problem solvers last summer. The reason I only ran the oil for 1600 miles was because I found a buyer for this, it's a convertible

and just doesn't make sense for our family any more.

I wanted to be sure the buyers wouldn't have any engine trouble.

Looks very good to me... Potassium and Sodium are trending downwards. Some of the flush oils I used were Mobil so I think that's where the traces of sodium are still coming from. And the silicon is probably the gasket sealant still leeching a bit.

154000 miles and it's probably at mid-life !!! Now if the rest of the car would last to 300k.

 

[bxd20]

Oh yea - this wasn't really 5W-30. I told Blackstone it was 50% 5W-30 and 50% 10W-40. That's why the viscosity is a bit higher than their range shows.

 

[mikeg5]

would you recomend this oil in 5w30 to people with really used motors?

 

[bxd20]

Mike-
Valvoline Maxlife, in all grades, has been proven time and again on BITOG to be one of the best choices there is. It holds up strong, great pack, great TBN retention.

I would probably feel comfortable running 5W-30 in a high mileage engine, as long as it was in good repair. I've done so in my car especially when the car was driven through winters. This winter I had put it in storage so that's why I thickened things up a bit - knew it wouldn't be driven again till summer.

 

[deven]

You are a good man bxd20 to spend 25 bucks on a UOA for someone else's good!!! From reading the numbers, I am assuming this is not synthetic but the blend? Great trending report. Are all the other reports Maxlife too? The first one from 11/02/05 seems like it could be Mobil 1?

 

[mikeg5]

i have read nothing but good things from maxlife.. personally i dont want to run it just yet in my tacoma. it only has 93k miles on it.. she is still young

 

[bxd20]

I personally have not yet tried MaxLife synthetic. Whenever I say MaxLife, I am talking about the regular version in the red bottle.

The 11/02/05 report is Valvoline MaxLife 10W-40. Were you thinking it was Mobil 1 because of sodium and potassium? That was the coolant leak two OCI's before having it fixed. As you can see the engine was wearing pretty well considering the leak, I just decided to nip it before it got worse.
It's possible that I could have gotten away with 4k mile OCI's for a long time, or, had a temporary fix with the GM sealant tabs. But back then I thought I'd be keeping the car a long time and wanted a permanent fix.

 

[mikeg5]

i know... do you like it?? would you recomend it to someone?

 

[bxd20]

"Very much" and "absolutely" !!!

 

[deven]

Quote:

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Were you thinking it was Mobil 1 because of sodium and potassium?

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No, I was thinking Mobil 1 because of the much less Moly and higher Calcium. Its the regular Mobil clean that has tons of Sodium though. I am surprised it was Maxlife.

 

[bxd20]

Right, MaxLife. But the Sodium was coming from the coolant leak not the oil.