Engine Cleanliness

Here us a picture of my A4 top end while replacing the oil separator. Almost 80k miles. 10k oci with Ravenol RUP 5w-40
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Quick shot of my old E39 M5 through the fill hole which I think would meet your tight engine bay, physically large engine criteria. I have no idea was the previous owner ran, this was M1 0w-40:
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That is how a properly maintained engine should look! Look at the lube getting into the cam chain rollers.
 
I think overhead cam configurations allow vapors to rise to those areas when the engine is shut down and deposit as they condense. I don’t think it is a great indicator of engine cleanliness Due to the accumulation of lighter fuel and lubricant factions That occurs.
 
FWIW while varnish causes a lot of bed wetting on BITOG, I've taken apart a fair number of engines that looked like absolute crap inside but wound up in the junkyard because the car was wrecked or the transmission failed.
 
FWIW while varnish causes a lot of bed wetting on BITOG, I've taken apart a fair number of engines that looked like absolute crap inside but wound up in the junkyard because the car was wrecked or the transmission failed.

FWIW and it isn't much the engines you are talking about had not much in common with modern engines other than it had pistons that went up and down, a camshaft and an average lifespan of 100K and a 10 year or less lifespan of the body on cars generally after 1960.
Smoking out of the tail pipe like my mothers frying pan and lifters sticking was the norm as was needing a ridge cutter to get the pistons out.
 
Solvency is what gives you cleaning power. Solvency tends to decrease as you go up in oil base group. PAO synthetics have very poor solvency which is why ester or naphthalene is typically added to them or they keep the concentration of PAO below 50% using the rest as group III.

Oxidation is what causes varnish and sludge to form. Higher oil base groups are more resistant to oxidation.

In a sense of oxidation causing a dirty engine, yes synthetics will keep the engine cleaner as they are more resistant to oxidation. In the sense of cleaning an already dirty engine however, that is not the case as the lower solvency of synthetic oils reduces cleaning power. The exception is synthetic oils will a good bit of group V.
 
It seems cheaper and more effective to clean a dirty engine with BG etc (follow instructions) and then give it a decent synthetic going forward …
 
Had to update the cam chain tensioners on this Jag V8, nothing noteworthy other than a clean engine. No idea what was in it but original spec was 5W30 dino and it got Edge 0W40 a couple thousand miles before this job.

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Our 2000 C230 Kompressor with 89,000 miles has had yearly changes with Mobil 1 0W-40 Euro, Looks as good as this BMW M5 - Good stuff.

That is one Benz I would buy. That is the small sportback hatchback wagon-ish one, is it not?

With the Supercharged 2.3 ?
 
That is one Benz I would buy. That is the small sportback hatchback wagon-ish one, is it not?

With the Supercharged 2.3 ?
No, this is the 4 dr. sedan, C Class, C230 from 1994-2000 - I know the one you are talking about, tho! I have been seeing one at my work day morning coffee spot lately, a black one. I had forgotten about those! This is ours...
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I run typical Group III synthetics (M1 , PPPP , Valvoline Advance , etc.) 5W30 and every few OCI's I pour in a 16 oz. bottle of Rison engine cleaner (before that I would use Sea Foam @ 1 oz. per quart of oil) . Both seemed to provide a bit of cleaning but nothing too dramatic as I was already doing severe duty oil changes with the Group III SN+ D1 / Gen 2 synthetics .
 
Had to update the cam chain tensioners on this Jag V8, nothing noteworthy other than a clean engine. No idea what was in it but original spec was 5W30 dino and it got Edge 0W40 a couple thousand miles before this job.

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Probably didn't matter if they were like my Mom.

Quaker State Blend 5W-30 - Changed every 6 months and after 36 months she had 11,000 mi.

Even the infamous Hyundai 2.4 GDI looked good.
 
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