I changed the oil in my girlfriend's Grand Am for the 2nd time since we bought it late last summer. The first filter I cut open after 3k miles, a Fram PH3506 looked horrible. Bent pleats, distorted endcaps, etc. I changed the oil & filter with Valvoline 5W-30 and a SuperTech ST3506. We ran that 3,100 miles and I changed it out last Friday after being in the car just under 4 months. The oil looked almost as clear as the day I put it in. I cut open the oil filter today and inside each of the pleats was a reasonable amount of specks of black carbon. This leads me to believe there might be some deposits in the motor from before we purchased it with an unknown history and the oil is cleaning some of those deposits out but the oil is still looking clean. Just thought I would share my experience since I used to tend to think clear oil = clean motor.
Carbon in filter pleats
- Thread starter ThirdeYe
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PP cleans extremely well. I would run a few short OCI with that so it can clean up the engine. Then run your favorite oil after that.
Right now I'm using Valvoline MaxLife 5W-30 because it's seeping a little bit of oil and it also burns a bit of oil and I believe it has good cleaning properties as well. PP is a great oil though and I have plenty of it to use in the future.
I dissect every filter removed from my vehicles. I cut a decent length of filter media and hang it up to 'dry'. After a month or so when most of the oil has drained off, you can really see this (black) carbon in the pleat folds of every filter I've removed-except ST. Using this method, it is extremely obvious which filters remove more visible junk. Oil and filter change intervals are approximately 5K. The current display includes ST, FramOCD, M1 and P1. P1 seems to take the prize, and ST is far in the rear as far as visible junk collection
Steve
Steve
Finely divided metal is black too, and much worse to wear than carbon.
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