I have an older car I drive for travel to work. Sees long highway drives.
Anyway it had been having a very noticeable tapping noise when started and driving for the first several minutes until it’s good and warmed up. Even on warm days to a lesser degree.
It usually has FS oils of any brand in it for 7k or so mile intervals. I’ve used some conventional oils here and there. Looked clean through the oil fill hole but I thought it still might just be a sticking lifter or something. So I decided to do an engine flush. Went to Walmart and got the only engine flush they had which was motor medic.
It said to dump it in and idle only for 5 minutes and that’s what I did. Changed the oil after and it was pretty dark. It was certainly darker than the little bit I took out before the flush but really not a lot of apparent junk or anything I could see. Next morning when I started it and there’s no tapping and hasn’t been one since. It’s been about 3 weeks and still no tapping.
I really wasn’t expecting much because like I said it had mostly had synthetic in the sump and always looked clean, looked perfectly clean through the oil filler hole too. I thought it might just be do to wear but why not give it a try.
I dunno how bad a flush is for seals but it fixed the tapping which I suppose was a sticking lifter is my guess and I really didn’t think a one time 5 minute flush is going to hurt the seals. So it seems to have been be a worthwhile thing to do considering.
I imagine there are many different flushes available that will work just fine but that’s the one I used.
The car is a 2012 Mazda 2 with 180k.
Anyway it had been having a very noticeable tapping noise when started and driving for the first several minutes until it’s good and warmed up. Even on warm days to a lesser degree.
It usually has FS oils of any brand in it for 7k or so mile intervals. I’ve used some conventional oils here and there. Looked clean through the oil fill hole but I thought it still might just be a sticking lifter or something. So I decided to do an engine flush. Went to Walmart and got the only engine flush they had which was motor medic.
It said to dump it in and idle only for 5 minutes and that’s what I did. Changed the oil after and it was pretty dark. It was certainly darker than the little bit I took out before the flush but really not a lot of apparent junk or anything I could see. Next morning when I started it and there’s no tapping and hasn’t been one since. It’s been about 3 weeks and still no tapping.
I really wasn’t expecting much because like I said it had mostly had synthetic in the sump and always looked clean, looked perfectly clean through the oil filler hole too. I thought it might just be do to wear but why not give it a try.
I dunno how bad a flush is for seals but it fixed the tapping which I suppose was a sticking lifter is my guess and I really didn’t think a one time 5 minute flush is going to hurt the seals. So it seems to have been be a worthwhile thing to do considering.
I imagine there are many different flushes available that will work just fine but that’s the one I used.
The car is a 2012 Mazda 2 with 180k.
