Oil Sludge

[Durango]

Hello to all,

I visit another website that deals Chrysler cars/trucks. It appears allot of people in the U.S. are having troubles with the v-6's and v-8's with a really bad sludge problems. For MY personal Dodge Duranog I've haven't had any trouble with my motor but for those of you in the cold areas of the U.S. it appears the motors doesn't heat up enough for the oil to flow elll throughout the oil passages. Question, has anyone had any sludge probles with your motor? What type of oikl do you use now as a result of the problem? Does anyone use synthetic to slove the sludge problem?

Durango

 

[sw99]

I think the biggest problem with the DC sludgers is the maintenance. Use a quality oil and regular maintenance and you should be fine.

 

[Durango]

Quote:

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I think the biggest problem with the DC sludgers is the maintenance. Use a quality oil and regular maintenance and you should be fine.

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sw99,

Many of these people have gone through regular maintenance which includes regular oil changes AND they are claiming their oil pumps are clogging up with this oil sludge. The dealership is claiming poor maintenance. I wonder what type/brand of oil these people are using? I've always used a branded synthetic (Mobil 1 ) and have never had any problems but then again I live in Los Angeles which doesn't ever get that cold compared to other states. Any ideas?

Durango

 

[RacerE7773]

Castrol or Pennzoil is what I would try for a regular oil. But for synthetics, the M1 should be fine.

 

[B00SS]

Try PP. A lot of folks have had good luck with it.

 

[Durango]

Hi all,

For myself I've always used M1 or Valvoline synthetic and never had any problems of sludge what so ever! For the others I can't say. It's Chrysler's next move now.

Durango

 

[hominid7]

I think the 2.7 liter is the sludge prone engine, but the 3.5 is not.

If you do have one of these engines i think while it may be overkill on other engines, the 3 month 3,000 mile oil change should apply for any engine prone to sludge.

With changing the oil that often, synthetic may not really see a huge benefit, so i would think any decent conventional or synthetic blend oil would do the job.

Just as my personal prefrence, i would also tend to prefer an oil with either no or a low amount of moly if i had a sludge prone cool running engine. Such low moly oils would be Castrol GTX, Valvoline, or Motorcraft. Valvoline 5w30 is blended just a fraction thinner than the other two, so for that reason, if choosing a 5w30, Valvoline AC would be my choice.

Others will wildly disagree with me, but thats my opinion and i'm sticking to it.

 

[ctrcbob]

What Dan Said. Its only the 2.7 liter engine that is the Sludge Monster. (beautiful high reving engine otherwise).
Chrysler tried to blame it on owners not changing oil often enough, however the problem does not show up with the 3.5 (or even the older 3.2) engine. Even when people had oil change recepts from dealers, DC was declining warranty coverage. Dealers use "bulk" oil and although they tell you they are using a quality oil, we don't know that - I always insist on them using oil from a bottle - if they don't do it, I don't have them do the oil change, Plus I watch them do the oilchange, if I can't watch, I go elsewhere. Dealers should be required to use oil from bottles, not bulk.

Go to Google and punch in "Engine Sludge" and it will probably show you the problems with the DC 2.7, the Toyota V-6 and perhaps even some VW engines.

 

[LouDawg]

To be fair, the 2.7 liter was supposedly *fixed* or changed after the 2002 MY, for what it's worth. I think from 2003 and beyond it was taken care of...FWIW.

I had one in an '03 Stratus and it was a CHERRY! Very nice, smooth, and quick.