'98 328 first ARX 149k Nothing?!

[mjfx]

I think I just need help analyzing my filter. Hopefully the pictures are good enough. I dont really see much in the filter, an occasional tiny piece of black material and thats about it. Im assuming it means my engine is in good shape.

-The car may have burned 0.2 quarts.

Nothing on the magnetic drain plug

-The filter canister seems a bit cleaner, but it may have looked like that before.

 

[Craig in Canada]

I did my 4/1998 528 (M52) last year at around 65k mi. I noticed the odd curly-Q of hard carbon in the filter and that's about it. I did, however, notice a significant reduction in a ticking lifter and an increase in power.

Generally my engine has seen 6500km (3k-4k mi)/6 month OCIs with M1 0W40 prior to this treatment. I wasn't expecting to get a lot out, frankly.

 

[mdocod]

things may already be pretty clean...

just making sure... but are this picts after following a complete ARX clean and rinse phase according to the instructions, with dino for the rinse if possible.?

 

[Donald]

You really need to pull the valve cover before and after the ARX phase to get a good picture of what is going on.

 

[Frank]

What stage of using Auto-rx were you in ? if cleaning take photos after rinsing (thats where you see what came out of the engine)cleaning mode liquify's contaminants leaving them on the oil lubricated rotating parts. Rinse mode drives them into filter.

 

[Tempest]

That appears to be a bottle of Amsoil in the pic. Great oil, but not the best for ARX. Try running some dino or PP for your ARX runs.

I ran Supertech dino on both of my cars and there was quite a bit of junk that came out of the drain pans.

 

[Russell]

I had very few pieces of gunk in each of my two clean/rinse cycles on my 95 BMW at about 110,000 miles. However, the car seems to run better. I also did not expect very much as the oil/filter had been changed on a regular basis with quality synnthetic the last 30,000 miles.

 

[Rick20]

Russell, What do you mean by the "car seems to run better"?
Also, what did you run for oil during the cleaning and rinse phases? I am of the opinion that dino or a group III synthetic should be used for the rinse phase, if not for the entire process.

 

[Craig in Canada]

I should also state that I used Esso XD3 15W40 dino HDEO for both clean and rinse phases. Before cleaning I used M1 0W40, after cleaning GC.

 

[mjfx]

This is AFTER the rinse cycle.

I used the regular dino 10w-30 that was at the Shell RapidLube place for the rinse phase. I must mention that i never feel comfortable with those guys.. they rarely see my car.

 

[Russell]

smoother and just seemed stronger. I used dino oil for all phases. I think a pennzoil 10w40.

 

[Steelhead]

results may be in increased insolubles in oil not picked up by filter due to size
particle size is not indicative of good engine cleaning

hard to see particles below about 50 micron

 

[mdocod]

The effects of ARX in various engines seems to vary.. I haven't exactly pinpointed it as of yet... But I'm going to list a few of my *hunches* on the subject.

1. Engines that work the oil hard, and have hotspots, and are prone to sludge problems, seem to respond to ARX with the most dramatic obvious results.
2. Engines that work hard in general, and see higher temperatures (thus thinner hotter oil) seem to respond to ARX with more dramatic results with less treatments and or shorter treatment times.
3. Engines that are very "easy" on oil, and do not work hard at all, and don't thin out oil much with heat, tend to be more lax about responding to ARX treatments.

Heat and exposure time are critical factors. Frank and I have had some discussion on this subject. In some engines extended ARX applications are required to get the results, because the engine just doesn't work ARX hard enough to do it's job.

If you are coming up with clean filters after 1500 mile clean and 2000 mile rinse and you want to do another treatment, bump up the clean phase to ~2250-2750 miles and run the rinse as a 2500-3000 mile OCI. Run the #@$%! out of it during the treatment time and try to get the oil temps up, consider blocking off some of the radiator to force it to run a little hot. (just don't go overheating it, try to get the needle to move above the thermostats "position" a little bit once and awhile).

 

[Donald]

But you still need to know how much cleaning your engine needed to start. One end of the curve would be dino oil you changed every 10K miles and the other end would be synthetic oil you changed every 3K miles. You are probably somewhere in between. Is your car on the list of engines that sludge?

 

[mjfx]

The car is not a known sludger. I change synthetic roughly every 7k with either M1 or Amsoil. I run my car hard all the time and always take highway trips.

Maybe a lot of the crud came out when dumping out the ARX. The car seems a little smoother and engine noise is quiter with the Amsoil. I'll add some VSOT and just go with it.

Next is fixing my power steering leaks.

 

[Rick20]

You know, some engine deposits are dissolved by ARX to the point where they are dispersed in the motor oil. Enough so that they are free to pass right through the filter. My guess is that the oil you dumped from the sump was loaded with more contamination than normal. The area where deoposits can be slowly released as miniscule carbon like deposit into the filter are typically from ring packs. These type deposits are formed under much higher heat and pressure than say deposits up in the valve train.

 

[ARB1977]

Im not expecting too much when i do an auto rx treatment although some were saying the same thing and was suprised on what came out and how well the engine performed afterwards. The valve train is spotless...so well see.

 

[sprintman]

Do a compression test before RX