Honda Accord 1997 (165,000 miles) bad varnish

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HK_Ace

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A friend of mine has this Accord she bought used. The previous owners did not treat it very well, to say the least. They basically did not change the oil often enough, in my opinion.

I am noticing that there is varnish on the dipstick and it looks brown when looking into the engine from the filler cap area. So I changed her oil for her today with PYB 5W30 and a Honda filter. She has recently been using the Honda regular fill. I figured the PYB's detergents will clean it out a bit but it may be pretty advanced. There was brown crud under her fill cap.

Is there anything else I can do for her Accord. She does not make much money and I try to help her as much as I can but she lives 600 miles away, so I'd like to do something (if anything) while she is here in Denver. I can do a flush as refill with PBY or whatever if it will help, but don't want to do anything drastic without asking here on BITOG.

The car seems to run okay and it was overheating a bit in stop-and-go traffic but I discovered part of the radiator cap IN the radiator (up high where I could fish it out. I replaced the cap with a new Honda cap and it seems to be normal temp now.
 
I would recommend staying with PYB at short(ish) intervals. If she can get the oil changed every 3,000 miles or so, that would keep flushing the old stuff out. And you can get a quality filter at a pretty good price in a white can Purolator Classic. At Walmart, a DIY PYB/Purolator Classic oil change is something like $18 and change.
 
Okay, I will tell her to stick to some short OCIs for a few changes. She does not live here or I'd do it for her. She will have to go get the oil changed but I will see if she can take PYB to the Honda dealer. When I lived there and used that dealership sometimes to change oil, they used to let me bring my oil.
 
Shell Rotella T5 10W30 from Walmart. The HDEO has a more robust detergent package and is better able to suspend the contaminates between oil changes.
 
A little varnish never hurt anything. With reasonable oil change intervals with the least expensive brand name conventional oil that you find on sale, the engine will still outlast the rest of the car.

You don't need synthetics, you don't need to obsess about it, and you don't need to try to "clean it up".
 
My wife's aunt has an early 90's accord with 250K, id like to see what it looks like under the valve cover. Still runs like a champ.
 
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
A little varnish never hurt anything. With reasonable oil change intervals with the least expensive brand name conventional oil that you find on sale, the engine will still outlast the rest of the car.

You don't need synthetics, you don't need to obsess about it, and you don't need to try to "clean it up".


More importantly, varnish never helped an engine. Varnish is caused by oil oxidizing. If an engine shows varnish it might have some ring coking which is caused by oxidation. Synthetics can reduce oxidation and varnish.
 
Originally Posted By: antonmnster
PICS or it doesn't exist!


x2, pull the valve cover while she's here and snap some pics for us. At the very least, take some though the oil filler hole from various angles.

I also agree that if the varnish isn't THAT BAD (nearing sludge levels) and the engine runs fine, like you said, leave it alone. Maybe a splash of Seafoam 500 miles before each OC for the next 4-5 OCs to help clean up the main areas a bit.

As far as the OCIs, I think 3k is too short, esp with PYB. Maybe dump the current fill a bit short to help flush out some stuff but if she doesn't make a lot of coinage, 3k OCIs is a waste. 5k with PYB would be perfect in that car, IMO. The factory OCI is like 7,500 miles for that engine!

Don't have her waste money by going to the dealer (unless its a really good deal). Instead, have her ask her friends for a good mechanic in town that will do the 15 mins OC for less (and do a better job at it as well) that's what I recommend. Stealerships suck!
 
We had that varnish on our 96's dipstick, one run of Pennzoil Platinum cleaned it up! Now running SM PYB in it (got it on sale for 4.4L jug 8 bucks bought 8 bottles)
 
I have the Honda 2.3 L and the best thing I did was run Mobil 1 5W30 and a smaller amount of Royal Purple XPR (high additive). In my opinion Mobil 1 is a great cleanout oil. It was in for 2500 km, and got black quickly. It was also thin and brought about rapid burning and a rear main leak. Now I have Castrol Syntec 10W30, and my oil burning has been reduced by half and the oil has stayed amber colour in 1500 km. If I were you, check if there's a stuck ring caused by coking of non-synthetic oil. I had that for years and didn't know it. Three overnight ring soaks unstuck it and I notice the extra hp on the highway, not so much in the city or in terms of the mpg the car gets. It used to be I had little passing power.
 
Strange placebo affect you got there. If enough power was restored that you definitely feel it on the highway, you'd definitely feel it in the city as well as the overall economy improvement due to the engine operating better.
 
Originally Posted By: tig1
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
A little varnish never hurt anything. With reasonable oil change intervals with the least expensive brand name conventional oil that you find on sale, the engine will still outlast the rest of the car.

You don't need synthetics, you don't need to obsess about it, and you don't need to try to "clean it up".


More importantly, varnish never helped an engine. Varnish is caused by oil oxidizing. If an engine shows varnish it might have some ring coking which is caused by oxidation. Synthetics can reduce oxidation and varnish.


Synthetics in a 15 year old Honda do nothing more than lighten the wallets of those foolish enough to believe the marketing hype.

If you read the original post closely you'll see the engine runs fine. The only issue is cosmetic varnish, which is meaningless. It's not a performance engine, there's no turbo, nor is it an exotic German engine that requires anything special. I highly suspect that there are thousands of 15 year old Hondas out there with varnish in the engine, and I sincerely doubt that the varnish is causing an issue with any of them.

And if you were to read the original post even more carefully, you'd know that the person for whom the poster is changing the oil doesn't make a large amount of money, therefore I still maintain that attempts to clean up any varnish are a meaningless waste of time and money. Keep the oil changed on a reasonable basis with a decent brand name conventional oil and the engine will outlast the rest of the 15 year old car. No synthetics needed.
 
My Civic has 208K currently and there is some varnish but it runs perfect. I'd be more concerned if the timing belt has been replaced and if it ever had a valve adjustment done. But I can understand the money situation so just do what you can.
 
I will see if I can pull the valve cover before she leaves tomorrow or at least try to get a picture or two through the oil fill hole and maybe the dipstick too. I will also try to find a good smaller mechanic where she can change oil. I feel bad for her since it does seem the mechanics and dealerships all charge her way more than they would me. I called the same shop she went to once and her $420 quote became $340. Pretty messed up, since I had her quote sheet faxed to me and used the same list of items. Anyway, I'll try to help her more by finding a good shop in the Overland Park area.

Next, I will see how difficult it is to pull the valve cover on that thing. Since she leave tomorrow, I would like to keep that car in one piece.
smile.gif
 
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