This Buick drives me crazy. I changed this engine about 14K (reman)ago and it is all over the map wear wise.
I ran this oil way longer than planned but due to an illness I was unable to change this oil for a very long time. I'm going to drop this oil in about 6 months and go back to dino and see what happens.
All the injectors were changed so I'm puzzled with the fuel.
One year wouldn't normally be too long for this oil if your mileage were a bit higher. Fuel may not be the injector's fault. You can't do any warmed up mileage if this is a (normally) daily driver.
It's hard to nail down due to all the complications you have here. Short runs ..fuel (may or may not be responsible for a chunk of the numbers) ...always on the higher side of the wear curve all the time.
The Pb would be annoying ..but if it continued to go down
Normally I'd attempt to isolate stuff. You've gone high enough in visc. There may be nothing you can do for the fuel.
150ppm is failure point for many including GM's internal UOA program for valadation purpose's. Who rebuilt this engine? A lot of places willnot rebuild these due to the thin wall casting in the bore area. The Buick 3.8 was on Wards top 10 engines for something like 15 years in the V6 catagory. It has the lowest internal friction of any V6 on the market due in large part to the rollerrized valve train and low tension rings etc......
This engine should not be tossing iron like that or lead.The tin and cromium are not good either. This is not an oil related failure either the engine was not machined and assembled properly or the combination of dirt getting into the engine and fuel is taking it's toll! Unless this engine was put together with RTV the silicone shouldnot be that high this engine has formed gaskets for all parts and only a dab of RTV is used in area's to hold the gasket in place. I suspect a major air leak which is letting in a lot of dirt.
Even in the 1970's with in 5000 miles rings where seated so even if the machine work on this engine was done 1970's style youhave surpassed the point that it should have settled down. This is not a GM V8 and does not toss high iron,copper or anything else for that matter unless you get dirt in it or coolant in it.
As far as the fuel goes first we need to get the silicone done and any air leaks or vacccum leaks under control! Then we can address fuel issue. It could be worn out injectors but it could also be other issues like MAP sensor for instance.
Based in the data. This engine needs 3k oil changes until silicon comes down to normal levels. Another thing to check is make sure the thermostat is up to par. Check for intake/vacuum leaks.
Agreed, but look how long it will take for 3k. It ends up being around 6months. The service itself contributes so much baseline noise from (an assumption) short trip usage. For him to get too busy to change it and only accumulating 7k in one years time ..
How is any additive package going to seat ..and how is any additive activation going to be achieved if it never sees a fully warmed state (infusing all the schools of thought here)? Now if he's actually sitting in traffic for gallons upon gallons of fuel perpetually, THEN the odometer just isn't registering the usage and he's really performing much more work with the engine.
If this was a normal 10k-15k/year vehicle then a series of short OCI's, that get progressively lengthened, would factor out leftovers ..but in this (again there's a few assumptions) service just isn't going to get all that clean in any sensible time line.
Edit: What I'm saying is that it could take 2 years PLUS just to determine that he has a mechanical problem due to the heavy fog that ain't going anywhere anytime soon.
