eww, gross dipstick

[eljefino]

This dipstick is out of a free 94 saturn SL2 I just picked up, with 107k miles. The last oil change sticker was for 102k, so the oil that was in there was probably 9000 miles old. The guy said he only drove 2 miles back and forth to work; the car has been off the road since around March '04. And the car runs really rich. The oil itself was pretty ugly; I changed it to a "cleaning out the shrine" odd lot so I could sleep nights. It's in a bottle if anyone wants to pay for a "really bad UOA." That's varnish, not oil, that is that color. The car still runs awesome, I haven't computed MPG but got 190 miles from half a tank so it's not too abysmal. The subframe is bent so the car is parked while I come up with ideas for it.

 

[Ken42]

Can you say Uck! How about some pictures of the oil bubbling back to its natural state.

 

[OdinsRageSS]

quadruple auto-rx treatment

 

[SteveD2]

That's what the dipstick looked like on my old jeep when I got it. I don't know how old the oil was, but it looked exactly like the stuff they use to reseal asphalt driveways.

 

[mkosem]

aah... saturn dipsticks. Get acquainted with it, you'll be looking at it often. They ALL burn oil, some more than others. But good luck, they're good cars! --Matt

 

[labman]

quote:

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Originally posted by mkosem: aah... saturn dipsticks. Get acquainted with it, you'll be looking at it often. They ALL burn oil, some more than others. But good luck, they're good cars! --Matt

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Since the Ecotec in my Cavalier burns very little oil, I doubt the ones in the Saturns would either. I am running 6K dino OCI and can hardly see the drop on the dip stick. I have decided I, or my wife is one of the few normal drivers. She drives about 30 miles each way to work on mostly 2 lane 55 MPH roads.

 

[eljefino]

Ecotec is probably a better motor than the old 1.9. This is my 4th saturn S-series I'm keeping up, so yeah, I think they're pretty nice.

 

[FL-400S]

My tercel's dipstick looks a little like that but not as bad. I ran AutoRx in it once and its got a few ounces in it now. One bottle of AutoRx goes a long way with a 3 quart sump. I also had a few ounces in the manual tranny for 1000 miles. So thats varnish? How do I get rid of it?

 

[mjo]

Here's something you can do with the Saturn to make it last longer, run quieter and prevent the oil burning. I did this on my '95 Saturn and notice a huge difference every time it is driven. No BS. Pics another post

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

eljefino, How's that dipstick looking now? Much cleaner? What have you done with the car considering it's bent subframe?

 

[eljefino]

I sold it a week later. We have a local pennysaver "Uncle Henrys" in which I took out an ad for the car for more than I thought it was worth. Some guy drove four hours one way with a car trailer and paid what I was asking. He said DOHCs were hard to find around here (there?) and his sister just ruined one. I swapped the subframe in a couple of days (they only weigh ~65 lbs.) I was very lucky the junkyard had one left over from an engine swap; I needed power tools to get the exhaust off at home. I put the 14 inch steel wheels off my SW1 on it and kept its 15" sawtooth alloys.