Have you ever done a piston soak on a vehicle?

[ZZman]

Many people with oil consumption issues say it works wonders. Have you had good luck with it?
1. What was the vehicle?
2. What was the issue?
3. What product did you do the soak with?
4. Did it work for you?

 

[Dave Sherman]

I did have some success.

1. 2013 Equinox 2.4 with the known faulty piston rings
2. Burning through a quart of oil every 1500-2000 miles. Dealer refused to believe it was the rings, even though we had the letter from GM saying we were eligible for the ring replacement. Dealer insisted it must be a clogged PCV port in the intake manifold and wanted $600 to clear it. I did it myself, the PCV was not clogged.
3. BG EPR 109. Put it in the oil when I changed the oil, and changed the oil again after 20 minutes of operation per the instructions.
4. Yes, for a while. After about 20,000 miles it started burning oil again.

 

[Urshurak776]

I have. Didn't work for me though as there was carbon scoring on the cylinder walls, so...futile in my case.

1. 2014 KIA Rio (1.6l Gamma engine.)
2. Blowing oil right by.....
3. Berrymans. Also tried an EPR in the oil. Didn't matter.
4. Nope (but, I'm sure the rings were cleaner, but scoring on cylinder walls can't be fixed.)

 

[wlk]

2005 Honda Element
1. Burning oil ~2qts/5k oci
2. Berryman's B12
3. It reduced it a great deal,~1/2
4. then followed Rislone, Gumout Multi-System Tune-Up, and HPL EC30 for 5k oci's over 2 years has brought the consumption to about 8oz per 5k oci now. I also did 2 oil changes with Motul XClean 5w40 for 5k oci with no additives.
The only thing I would have changed was, I did not let it sit overnight or longer. I let it sit for 6-8 hours then did the oil change.

 

[mccandish]

1. 2010 Toyota Highlander with the 1AR-FE 2.7 inline-4
2. Burned a quart of oil roughly every 1,500 miles
3. Berryman B-12 (part number 0116) 2-3 ounces in each cylinder and let soak for 24 hours
4. Oil consumption is down to less than a quart per 5,000 miles for the last three oil changes since the piston soak.

Full post here.

 

[ZZman]

I have. Didn't work for me though as there was carbon scoring on the cylinder walls, so...futile in my case.

1. 2014 KIA Rio (1.6l Gamma engine.)
2. Blowing oil right by.....
3. Berrymans. Also tried an EPR in the oil. Didn't matter.
4. Nope (but, I'm sure the rings were cleaner, but scoring on cylinder walls can't be fixed.)

Bummer....

 

[Gebrekkend]

1. 2012 Scion XB 130,000 miles
2. Burned a quart about every 750 miles
3: Berrymans B12
4. Yes, driven 1000 miles since the soak and oil change. No noticeable usage.

 

[Nick1994]

Not yet, but my brother and I will soon on my old Camry I gave him. It burns some oil on the tired old 2.2L

 

[Tundragod]

Many people with oil consumption issues say it works wonders. Have you had good luck with it?
1. What was the vehicle?
2. What was the issue?
3. What product did you do the soak with?
4. Did it work for you?

1. 2008 HA EXL
2. Use 1qts every 2k miles
3. Marvel Mineral oil and Berryman's B1.
4. No but smoked out neighbors from walking by.

 

[paulo57509]

Many people with oil consumption issues say it works wonders. Have you had good luck with it?
1. What was the vehicle?
2. What was the issue?
3. What product did you do the soak with?
4. Did it work for you?

Long story but I'll post anyway. The nature for the piston soak wasn't a ring issue so this is probably off-topic.

1. 1987 Camaro (see signature).
2. Part throttle ping.
3. GM Top Engine Cleaner.
4. No, it did not.

The details are fuzzy; this was decades ago.

The above was done at the dealership. Must have been around 1990 or thereabouts. The car had ~45k? miles (I didn't keep detailed records back then).

I recall looking at ignition timing, knock sensor, mixture, etc., the basic things one would looking at with no resolution. I began to suspect carbon build-up. My father (always willing to help) called a contact at the dealership and they too suspected carbon build up. Hence, the piston soak.

A few months later, my bound book of TSB's showed up from Helm. Thumbing thru those thick volumes I came across a TSB regarding smoke on start-up with TPI engines. Again, the memory is fuzzy but there might have been reference to light pinging as well.

The TSB described a warped lower intake manifold as the cause, allowing oil from the lifter valley in ingress into the intake. To check for a warped manifold, a few corner manifold bolts were removed and the bolt clearance holes were inspected for "threading". My manifold did show threading in these holes.

Replaced with an Edelbrock 3860 instead of the GM relacement revised manifold. Issue resolved.

 

[350Rocket]

Many people with oil consumption issues say it works wonders. Have you had good luck with it?
1. What was the vehicle?
2. What was the issue?
3. What product did you do the soak with?
4. Did it work for you?

1. 1976 Oldsmobile 350 v8 in an 84 Olds Cutlass
2. No real issues other than compression between 130 and 145 psi (42-44 year old engine at the time with unknown miles but I've put 130k miles on since 2007
3. MMO
4. Don't know
I added the mmo through the spark plug holes before winter storage one year. Let it soak for the winter.
I didn't end up getting a chance to do a compression test after...so it got checked a year later. Lost the original numbers. They might have improved slightly but seemed pretty similar. It had lots of driving and full synthetic oil changes the entire time I've owned it so I can't say if it helped or not, but I suspect there was very little if anything to clean anyway.

 

[jetman]

Many people with oil consumption issues say it works wonders. Have you had good luck with it?
1. What was the vehicle?
2. What was the issue?
3. What product did you do the soak with?
4. Did it work for you?

2007 Yukon Denali w/6.2L L92 w/130k miles at the time (2018).
piston rings on all 8 cylinders were stuck due to the original GM poorly designed driver side valve cover/pvc.
Fix was GM TSB: https://f01.justanswer.com/ebrock63...il+Consumption,+MIL+ON,+Engine+Runs+Rough.pdf
I did a long 48 hr soak w/Gunk brand Motor Medic Motor Flush
The TSB work I did immediately cured the stuck rings/oil consumption.
Its been 5+ yrs and 65k miles and no makeup oil between 5k mile changes

 

[sw99]

Many people with oil consumption issues say it works wonders. Have you had good luck with it?
1. What was the vehicle?
2. What was the issue?
3. What product did you do the soak with?
4. Did it work for you?

1. 2009 Toyota Matrix 1.8L @ 94K
2. None / PM
3. B12
4.

 

[sw99]

Many people with oil consumption issues say it works wonders. Have you had good luck with it?
1. What was the vehicle?
2. What was the issue?
3. What product did you do the soak with?
4. Did it work for you?

1. 2009 Toyota Corolla 1.8L @ 200K
2. Burns a qt every 3-4k
3. B12
4. Oil consumption reduced by approximately 50%

 

[Gus_Mahn]

Many people with oil consumption issues say it works wonders. Have you had good luck with it?
1. What was the vehicle?
2. What was the issue?
3. What product did you do the soak with?
4. Did it work for you?

1. 2017 Audi Q3 2.0 Turbo
2. Burning 2 Quarts of oil every 500-600 miles. Started with bad crankcase oil separator causing high crankcase vacuum. Still burning after separator replaced.
3. 2 Cans of Berryman's B12. I even ran it for about 10 minutes with B12 in the oil. Changed oil and beat on it for about 20 miles.
4. Yes. No followup other than the owner didn't need to add oil in 3000 mile OCI.