I've been lurking here for a few months, but decided to register and post today in hopes of getting some feedback from the oil gurus here on my plan to safely remove the sludge from my 2000 Corolla VE (4 speed auto). A little background:
I bought it from the original owner on May 6th of this year, and received with it every service invoice, sorted by shop and organized chronologically. In looking through them, I noted that she missed an oil change at about the 50,000 km mark (it had 96,000 km on it when I bought it, and I've put another 7,500 km on it since).
During that missed interval, she put 1,200 km on it over a 1 year period on dino, which is all that was ever used in this car. I suspect that was when the sludge started to form, and her driving habits (mostly short trips, minimal highway, lots of stop and go) combined with a regular service interval of 4,500-7,500 km OCIs worsened the problem.
This particular 8th gen, like many other 8th gen Corollas, is an "oil burner." I've noticed, though, that as long as I stick close to posted speed limits (i.e., don't push it over 110-115 km/h on the highway), it doesn't consume much oil. And not enough for me to consider it an issue, more like something I remain aware of. When I've really pushed the speedo on the highway, oil consumption went way up (I stopped doing this when I finally got nailed for doing 132 in a 100 km zone, which would have been a $450 fine here if the cop hadn't cut it back a bit to give me a break).
Anyway, background done, this is the plan I'm considering and looking for feedback on:
Doing an early OCI at 3,500 km and replacing my current Frankenblend of 2.6L Toyota dino, 750 ml Castrol GTX HM, and 250 ml PP. There's roughly 1,000 km on this oil mix, and I changed the filter yesterday to a Mobil 1 Extended Performance filter. The Walmart rollback of the day was PP and the price was too good to pass up, so I picked up a 4.4L jug of the stuff.
When I do that 3,500 km OCI I plan to use the 3L of the PP synthetic blended with 600 ml of the new 100% synthetic Valvoline Maxlife. As far as I can tell, other than the small amount of PP I topped it up with after replacing the filter, this car has only ever seen dino.
This will be the first time it'll be run on 100% synthetic. I'm proposing this blend for the sludge fighting properties of PP and the seal conditioning and protection of MaxLife. I'll keep the same filter on and just change the oil. I plan to run this blend for 5,000 km and then change out both the oil and filter.
One 5,000 km OCI probably won't get it all out, and I know that's a very short OCI for synthetic, but I'm weighing that against the visible sludge and erring on the side of too early. What goes in after that'll depend on what I've picked up on sale in the interval and the relative success at cleaning it out.
Goal is to get it clean, keep it clean, and gradually extend the OCI by using good synthetics combined with good quality filters. This Mobil 1 filter was pricey, but if it delivers what the box claims it does, I'll happily stick with it. Oil and filters are cheap. Engines and rebuilds are not.
Anyone see any holes in this plan?
-Spyder
I bought it from the original owner on May 6th of this year, and received with it every service invoice, sorted by shop and organized chronologically. In looking through them, I noted that she missed an oil change at about the 50,000 km mark (it had 96,000 km on it when I bought it, and I've put another 7,500 km on it since).
During that missed interval, she put 1,200 km on it over a 1 year period on dino, which is all that was ever used in this car. I suspect that was when the sludge started to form, and her driving habits (mostly short trips, minimal highway, lots of stop and go) combined with a regular service interval of 4,500-7,500 km OCIs worsened the problem.
This particular 8th gen, like many other 8th gen Corollas, is an "oil burner." I've noticed, though, that as long as I stick close to posted speed limits (i.e., don't push it over 110-115 km/h on the highway), it doesn't consume much oil. And not enough for me to consider it an issue, more like something I remain aware of. When I've really pushed the speedo on the highway, oil consumption went way up (I stopped doing this when I finally got nailed for doing 132 in a 100 km zone, which would have been a $450 fine here if the cop hadn't cut it back a bit to give me a break).
Anyway, background done, this is the plan I'm considering and looking for feedback on:
Doing an early OCI at 3,500 km and replacing my current Frankenblend of 2.6L Toyota dino, 750 ml Castrol GTX HM, and 250 ml PP. There's roughly 1,000 km on this oil mix, and I changed the filter yesterday to a Mobil 1 Extended Performance filter. The Walmart rollback of the day was PP and the price was too good to pass up, so I picked up a 4.4L jug of the stuff.
When I do that 3,500 km OCI I plan to use the 3L of the PP synthetic blended with 600 ml of the new 100% synthetic Valvoline Maxlife. As far as I can tell, other than the small amount of PP I topped it up with after replacing the filter, this car has only ever seen dino.
This will be the first time it'll be run on 100% synthetic. I'm proposing this blend for the sludge fighting properties of PP and the seal conditioning and protection of MaxLife. I'll keep the same filter on and just change the oil. I plan to run this blend for 5,000 km and then change out both the oil and filter.
One 5,000 km OCI probably won't get it all out, and I know that's a very short OCI for synthetic, but I'm weighing that against the visible sludge and erring on the side of too early. What goes in after that'll depend on what I've picked up on sale in the interval and the relative success at cleaning it out.
Goal is to get it clean, keep it clean, and gradually extend the OCI by using good synthetics combined with good quality filters. This Mobil 1 filter was pricey, but if it delivers what the box claims it does, I'll happily stick with it. Oil and filters are cheap. Engines and rebuilds are not.
Anyone see any holes in this plan?
-Spyder
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