How does one prevent sludge and varnish?Does using a synthetic oil prevent sludge and varnish with a OCI of 5K or changing your oil every 3K or 3 months which ever comes first?Thanks Joe
Oil Deposits-Sludge/Varnish
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If you get you some MaxLife with its PAO content, you'll have a clean motor inside.
A good synthetic oil will help in preventing sludge and varnish but is not an absolute necessity. Reasonable OCI's will help also. Doing a couple of UOA's will help determine just how long you can prolong your oil changes, plus if possible removing your valve covers on occasion to take a look to see if any build up is occuring. A good Auto-RXing every 30K or so will help also. Remember that coolant leaks into the crankcase and high engine temps will create sluding issues, so keep an eye out for those problems.
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If you get you some MaxLife with its PAO content, you'll have a clean motor inside.
Not entirely true and not a guarantee.
Some day I'm gonna pull my valve covers and you'll see.
Maybe just to sum-up, any oil will varnish if given the right conditions and enough time - dino or synthetic. Having said that, synthetic oil resists varnish and sludge formation much longer than dino under a given set of operating conditions. So to answer your question, most synthetics will do just fine with a 5K OCI (and longer depending on the engine itself). For many engines and driving styles, there are those here that claim that 5K miles on dino is fine. It wouldn't be in my engine, but it certainly is in say a Honda engine or the GM 3.8L V6. Again, depends on the engine, how it's driven (mostly highway or mostly stop and go/short trips), adn the conditions (do you live in Phoenix or northern Michigan). All of that plays a role.
Well...just by looking under the oil cap i would say yes but im courous what the rest of the system is like so im going to give Auto Rx a try.
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If you get you some MaxLife with its PAO content, you'll have a clean motor inside.
Not entirely true and not a guarantee.
Some day I'm gonna pull my valve covers and you'll see.
And pretty much the same thing you'd see with any reasonable OCI program using a current SM or SL oil. . .
ALL of this thread is good advice below is the MOST important IMHO.
Bruce
Bruce
va3ux is right on here
good info
As I understand it, every oil can and will leave deposits, and no motor oil I am aware of has any built-in method of removing deposits that have already formed. The detergency in oil is the type of detergency that is supposed to reduce the likelihood of deposits being formed, so high grade synthetics with more stable/pure base stocks, combined with their add-packs that are usually more robust, will leave less behind over the years. The only exception to this rule might be red-line motor oil. Which is the only I am aware of that contains a high content of esters as base stocks, which are probably more apt to "penetrate" deposits and dissolve them(just guessing here, not fact)... but I wouldn't guarantee anything with any oil alone. I can say with confidence that most engines respond to ARX, it WILL remove deposits.
good info
As I understand it, every oil can and will leave deposits, and no motor oil I am aware of has any built-in method of removing deposits that have already formed. The detergency in oil is the type of detergency that is supposed to reduce the likelihood of deposits being formed, so high grade synthetics with more stable/pure base stocks, combined with their add-packs that are usually more robust, will leave less behind over the years. The only exception to this rule might be red-line motor oil. Which is the only I am aware of that contains a high content of esters as base stocks, which are probably more apt to "penetrate" deposits and dissolve them(just guessing here, not fact)... but I wouldn't guarantee anything with any oil alone. I can say with confidence that most engines respond to ARX, it WILL remove deposits.
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