98 Toyota Avalon

[bustednutz]

I am going to look at a very clean and well maintained 98 Toyota Avalon tomorrow. Owner claims it has been maintained with excellence. So, I take it that this is the 3.0 Sludger motor. I also know its very difficult to see into the valve cover. So....what signs should I look or listen for when it comes to the sludge issue? It has 150k miles.
Thanks in advance.

 

[EricF]

See if you can look at the maintenance records & maybe you could see the type of oil put in.
you will be able to take off the pcv valve/hose and you can inspect a little from there.
Where the oil fill hole is, it's 100% blocked from any view of the valves.
This motor is a sludge motor, my sister in law's 97 has been on mobil 1 since 10,000 miles so I'm pretty confidant there's little to no sludge.. (hopefully).
See under the oil filler cap, you might be able to see some buildup there..
At worst.. if you buy the car.. run several runs of MMO or Auto-RX for a faster cleanup.. or Pennzoil Platinum & let the cleaning occur naturally..
the oil filter is upside down, not to hard to get to.. just messy.

 

[JC1]

I have a 98 Sienna with the same motor. The sludge issue only effected 3,400 people. They sold hundreds of thousands of vehicles with the 3.0 litre engine.

Link to sludge settlement

Without removing the front valve cover, I would ask for maintenance records. I would also check the dipstick and take it out for a spin of course.

The engine is probably fine unless the owner never changed the oil regularly.

Regards, JC.

 

[wiswind]

Don't be mislead by what you see when you remove the oil fill cap in the front valve cover.
Toyota put a rough black coating on the baffel that you see directly below the oil fill cap, some sort of sound deadening.
That is NOT sludge.

If you can get at it, the PCV valve is located in the REAR valve cover.....sort of toward the passenger side.
If you pull it out and look at it.......to see if it is clogged, that should give you some sort of indication of the health of the motor.
If the PCV valve is completely clogged with junk, that would not be a good sign, as that is a cause of sludge buildup inside the motor.
SOME deposit is normal if the PCV valve has been in there for a long time.

 

[eagle23]

You can also check the upper portion of the dipstick, to see if there is heavy varnish build up. I didn't like the baffle either as I like to see what the head looks like directly. But as suggested, the under side of the filler cap itself will also tell you something.

I had a sludger on a 95 Camry I bought, not knowing it was a sludger motor. It was, and later died, i.e., locked up.

The replacement engine was from a salvage yard. I pulled the front valve cover and it was immaculate. I ran it on synthetics only and sold it to a (now ex) girlfriend with 80k+ on the newer engine, who later sold it to her sister with 130k on the engine, still strong.

 

[rslifkin]

My dad had a 97 Avalon 3.0 that he bought with 24k miles, and it had 167k on it when he totaled it. All of that was on cheap 10w30 bulk dino, changed every 3k - 3500 miles. The engine probably wasn't spotless, but it certainly wasn't a sludger.

 

[bcossa2001]

I have 208K on my 97 Avalon. Oil changes at 3k miles--used Fram filters until I joined BITOG

.

I had to replace the valve cover gaskets last year and they were spotless. I looked all over for sludge and could not find any.

My opinion is that if the oil was changed regularly the car is likely ok....

I would ask if the steering rack has ever been changed. Mine seems to fail regularly at 100k. Otherwise no issues...

 

[moto94536]

2006 toyota camry v6 1mz-fe. 208,000 miles now. no sludge. I am using the cheapest fram oil filter PH3614. so far transmission fluid changed one time at 100,000 miles.

great engine.

 

[moto94536]

anyway. what cause a sludge?

 

[ChiTDI]

Originally Posted By: moto94536
anyway. what cause a sludge?


In that engine,a restricted PCV system and a drain back design in the heads that allows oil to pool and cook.
I have one too, clean as a whistle w/5k OCI using synthetic. 137k