Poor Boxer Motor

[THORROMIG]

Good female friend has a 06 Subaru Baja 2.5! Asked me to change the oil, drainded awhole 5 seconds at the most with barely any oil is my point?? Checked the dipstick and it was literally stuck. Filled with Castrol GTX 5W30 and within 1 thousand miles--a quart was gone with no drips underneath. The car only has 43 thousand miles and she thinks her brother changed it acouple times in the past??? Is it time to run highmileage motor oil in this motor now or just run a good quality synthectic?

 

[2004tdigls]

take the car to a dealer and buy a new engine

its done

incredible that people continue to abuse and destroy expensive vehicles like this on a daily basis

 

[sciphi]

Do a few more changes with cheap dino oil to get the obvious yucky stuff out, then put a synthetic like Pennzoil Ultra in for a short run to clean things up.

Beware, no good deed goes unpunished, especially with car-clueless female friends!

 

[SLCraig]

I am with Sciphi on this one.. I would probably do about the same.
It's fairly low miles I wouldn't worry about any treatment stuff or anything. I've seen engines treated like that with a LOT more miles on them than that and still running not only fine, but excellent, somehow.

 

[Scott_Tucker]

The car hasn't been maintained well but there is no reason it shouldn't clean up if, in fact, the oil has been changed 'a couple times. I would suspect that the oil control rings are stuck from sludge and will free up with good oil.

However, I could be totally wrong and it could spin a bearing tomorrow.

 

[cptbarkey]

wow that is a shame. good luck.

 

[Bluestream]

Its an 06 car so must be worth something. Why would she ask you to change the oil? Can she afford to go to Jiffy lube?

Stay away, or you will be blamed for anything that goes wrong. Some people should not own cars; its that simple...

 

[JGW]

Wow...

 

[daves87rs]

It might keep going with some more oil...

 

[sciphi]

Be straight up with your friend, and let her know what could happen since the car has been neglected. Be careful, or she'll blame you for every little thing that goes wrong now!

 

[yonyon]

Could the stuck dipstick be more a stuck o-ring on the handle part of the dipstick?

 

[bodeh6]

That would suck. My car is a 2006 Legacy with 69K miles and it used to get dino OCI every 3500-4000. Now it is longer with syn and it runs wonderfully.

Just keep changing the oil at short intervals.

 

[fsskier]

I agree with the above posters.... run it. After a few regular oil changes the consumption may drop a lot.... but some Subaru Boxers do burn quite a bit of oil normally..... my son's has always burned a qt every 2500 miles. This has remained constant from new to 150,000 miles. So far, if 50 quarts of synthetic makeup oil has been used its still only 300 dollars.

Since he usually changes it when its a quart low the second time, then its only 150 bucks over 150,000 miles..... cheap.

Oil consumption is a very small expense in most cars, and yours may improve

 

[Gene K]

If it continues to use a quart every 1000 miles just change the filter every 5000 miles and top up. Thats all it needs. The engine doesnt care if its drained all at once through the drain plug or 1 quart at a time past the rings.

 

[teambeechstreet]

Kreen, Kreen, and some more Kreen

 

[yonyon]

Gene K, that sounds like an interesting idea.

Consider if you had two glass bowls with 5 pints of water in each:

In one bowl, add a drop of blue food coloring, stir it up, then replace 1 qt of water with fresh clean water. Repeat 30 times.

In the other bowl just add 5 drops of the same food coloring and stir it up.

Which bowl gets to have the darkest/most dyed water?

I believe that after the tenth drop of dye in the first bowl it's got more dye than the second bowl ever gets.

This analogy is an extreme simplification that would would correspond to a 5 quart total oil capacity and total run time of 10,000 miles and ignores the filter changes and the residual oil not replaced during a drain. As such, the real engine would need a bit more than 10,000 miles for the unchanged oil to exceed the dirtiness level of the changed oil, but it will get there eventually.

 

[Gene K]

Originally Posted By: yonyon
Gene K, that sounds like an interesting idea.

Consider if you had two glass bowls with 5 pints of water in each:

In one bowl, add a drop of blue food coloring, stir it up, then replace 1 qt of water with fresh clean water. Repeat 30 times.

In the other bowl just add 5 drops of the same food coloring and stir it up.

Which bowl gets to have the darkest/most dyed water?



Well technically its not an exact 1:1 ratio but an engine that gets 1 quart of oil replenished every 1000 miles + the extra for a filter change at 5000 miles making roughly 8.0 quarts vs 4.4 quarts during a normal change at 7500 miles would in my opinion be just as well off.

It would be very little different in practice than the Cummins Sentinel System. https://qsol2.cummins.com/info/qsol/products/newparts/centinel.html

PS Sorry if my memory is rusty on Subaru 2.5 Capacity.

 

[Rand]

is the the turbo baja?

 

[bluesubie]

If it is the turbo Baja, use synthetic and something that is not Resource Conserving.

-Dennis

 

[lexus114]

Castrol GTX is good oil,I`d just continue to monitor it and add as necessary. Then after a few oci`s,switch to Mobil-1 5W-30 HM. I have a 5qt jug of the MB-1 HM if your close enough to come and get it.