Toyota 0w20, 6644 miles, 2006 Civic

[Patman]

Here are the latest results from my 2006 Civic, analysis done by Wearcheck Canada:


6,644 miles on oil
Nov 19 to May 6 (6 months)
90,427 miles on engine
Toyota 0w20 (SM)
Fram XG oil filter
4.0L oil capacity
no makeup oil
MM was at 15%


Iron 6.5
Lead 0
Aluminum 6.8
Copper 0.6
Chromium 0.5
Nickel 0
Titanium 0
Tin 0
Silver 0

Silicon 21
Potassium 1.8
Sodium 26

Moly 595
Boron 42
Barium 0
Calcium 2433
Magnesium 15

Manganese 0.2
Antimony 1.8
Vanadium 0
Beryllium 0
Cadmium 0
Lithium 0.3
Sulfur 4019

Phosphorus 648
Zinc 832

Oxidation 130
Nitration 60
Sulfation 102

Soot 0
Glycol 0
Water 0
Fuel 7%!!

Viscosity at 100c - 6.6 cst


I'm obviously VERY concerned about the amount of fuel getting into the oil! I don't believe I have ever seen a UOA on this site with fuel dilution even close to this high! What could be causing this? And how would I go about explaining this to a service technician, since the car is showing no signs that there is a problem, and the average motorist doesn't do oil analysis and would never know if their Honda was doing this as well.

I now am running Mobil 1 0w20 in there, and was originally planning on doing longer OCIs, but I most certainly won't be doing that until I find a way to lower the fuel dilution!

That being said, I'm extremely impressed with the wear numbers. That excessive amount of fuel in the oil is obviously not causing any extra engine wear.

 

[sasilverbullet]

Are you driving short distances? Is the engine getting properly warmed up?

 

[mikered30]

How did you sample it? Hot, cold? Leaky injector?

 

[tig1]

Either your UOA is way off(that can happen)or you may need to have your injectors removed and cleaned.

 

[ahoier]

Originally Posted By: Patman
What could be causing this? And how would I go about explaining this to a service technician, since the car is showing no signs that there is a problem, and the average motorist doesn't do oil analysis and would never know if their Honda was doing this as well.
Do you track your MPG at all? How is it? Has it been slumping downward?

I know the only time I had fuel problem was back when I first got my car, the previous owner did not have a t-stat installed....but get this, the backyard mechanic I took it to, went ahead and replaced some "Coolant Temperature Sensor" and a Coolant Sending Unit or something, and a Radiator Fan Relay (the early issue, was the radiator fan wasn't kicking on......and the coolant gauge on the dash seemed to be "disabled" - stuck at COLD....)

Took it to a place that knew there stuff, and they said basically the engine didn't know how hot it was......so it kept dumping fuel, to get to "closed loop"/ warmed up mode And with the deactivated t-gauge, it couldn't read the temperature.....he told me I was lucky I didn't blow the headgasket (a problem area for the K cars I guess....).


But yea, I'd check out the sensors and such under the hood, be sure they are all working properly.....or [censored], if they aren't that expensive, just change them out anyways.....I don't really know if there's any way of "testing" the sensors/relays....at least a thermostat you can put into boiling water, and see if it opens

 

[dave1251]

Fuel if indeed that high is the highest I have seen in a gasoline engine. But you have single digit wear everywhere on a 6.6K OCI. I have to give Honda and M-1 due on this one. Try some Techron if you can find it before I would take it to the mechanic. But if you have a injector that is spraying fuel that bad you may not have a different course of action.

 

[daves87rs]

Originally Posted By: tig1
Either your UOA is way off(that can happen)or you may need to have your injectors removed and cleaned.


This...

 

[Patman]

To answer all the questions, I don't do many short trips with this car at all, most of my trips are longer ones. I sampled it after a 25-30 minute drive, including a lot of highway driving and I did a few full throttle blasts just to help heat up the oil even more. The previous UOA, with about 4k on the oil showed 2.0% fuel, although oddly enough the viscosity was 7.0 on that one so it wasn't much different than this UOA.

I've got a Scanguage and my MPG hasn't dropped at all, in fact it's quite incredible! On a pure highway trip I always get over 40 mpg. One of the displays I have on my scanguage is the coolant temp and it always gets up to 180-190 on my drive to work and when stuck in traffic it will climb up to over 210. So it's definitely not running too cold, so the thermostat is not stuck open.

I will try putting some fuel injector cleaner in there to see if it helps (we can't get Techron up here but we can get Regane which I've heard is very good)

 

[Hermann]

Wondering here if the decimal point was ommited and it should be .7%. Things that make you go MMMMMM.

 

[chubbs1]

That UOA seems too good to have had that much fuel dilution going on the whole time. I would double check with WearCheck.

 

[Slick17601]

The full throttle blasts certainly didn't help right before the drain.

 

[oiltard]

I'm real skeptical of the 7% fuel, given the wear. Can you ask the lab if they still have the sample, and if they can try to verify the fuel content?

 

[hate2work]

Originally Posted By: Hermann
Wondering here if the decimal point was ommited and it should be .7%. Things that make you go MMMMMM.


This is what I'm thinking as well-

 

[Patman]

I don't think the fuel number is an error, as they commented on the excessive fuel dilution as a problem on the report and mentioned that the oil was not suitable for future use. And given the super low viscosity, there has to be some amount of fuel in it, so it's definitely not 0.7%, it's 7.0%. (don't forget, I got 2.0% fuel on the previous UOA in a shorter run)

I think they might have even double checked it themselves to make sure, as the sample was in the lab a little bit longer than usual (I dropped it off Monday at 10am and they didn't finish it up until today at 4pm, they usually get it done a bit quicker than that)

 

[yonyon]

Originally Posted By: dave1251
Fuel if indeed that high is the highest I have seen in a gasoline engine.



You young kids have missed some fun stuff. Back in the olden days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and people invented cars to make running away from the nastier dinosaurs easier there were also things called carburetors. Carburetors magically made the engine run, but only when something called a 'mechanical fuel pump' fed fuel to the carburetor. It was some kind of crazy hocus pocus almost as unbelievable as these ridiculous claims about so called "diesel engines" that run without any spark plugs in them. I didn't believe it until I saw one with my own eyes. Anyway, these mechanical fuel pumps would eventually start leaking fuel into the crankcase when they'd get old and usually the oil would get to be diluted to the tune of 50% to 75% before low compression while cranking would make starting very difficult. 7%? It can happen.

 

[dave1251]

Originally Posted By: yonyon
Originally Posted By: dave1251
Fuel if indeed that high is the highest I have seen in a gasoline engine.



You young kids have missed some fun stuff. Back in the olden days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and people invented cars to make running away from the nastier dinosaurs easier there were also things called carburetors. Carburetors magically made the engine run, but only when something called a 'mechanical fuel pump' fed fuel to the carburetor. It was some kind of crazy hocus pocus almost as unbelievable as these ridiculous claims about so called "diesel engines" that run without any spark plugs in them. I didn't believe it until I saw one with my own eyes. Anyway, these mechanical fuel pumps would eventually start leaking fuel into the crankcase when they'd get old and usually the oil would get to be diluted to the tune of 50% to 75% before low compression while cranking would make starting very difficult. 7%? It can happen.


I am far from a kid and have owned a couple of GM trucks and cars with carburetors.

But where is the excessive fuel you speak of?

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2360742


This is a small sample but if a carb was in tune I do not see a problem. 7% fuel is just too high for a gasoline engine any way you look at it. But with even the highest wear being at less than 10PPM, this just does not seem right.

 

[dave1251]

Originally Posted By: Patman
To answer all the questions, I don't do many short trips with this car at all, most of my trips are longer ones. I sampled it after a 25-30 minute drive, including a lot of highway driving and I did a few full throttle blasts just to help heat up the oil even more. The previous UOA, with about 4k on the oil showed 2.0% fuel, although oddly enough the viscosity was 7.0 on that one so it wasn't much different than this UOA.

I've got a Scanguage and my MPG hasn't dropped at all, in fact it's quite incredible! On a pure highway trip I always get over 40 mpg. One of the displays I have on my scanguage is the coolant temp and it always gets up to 180-190 on my drive to work and when stuck in traffic it will climb up to over 210. So it's definitely not running too cold, so the thermostat is not stuck open.

I will try putting some fuel injector cleaner in there to see if it helps (we can't get Techron up here but we can get Regane which I've heard is very good)


I have to agree Regane is very good and if you can not get Techron in your neck of the woods, I would settle on that, but as you know I would not expect any miracle and you are likely going to have visit the car doctor for this.

 

[tig1]

Patman,

What about the flash point?

 

[Drivebelt]

I'm thinking 7% is an error too -- like maybe a 2 got transcribed to a 7 somewhere along the line.

If it was really was 7%, the oil when drained should have had a pretty strong gasoline smell.

 

[bourne]

If you have a BMW dealer near you and they will cut you a deal, you can use their fuel system cleaner , its the same as Chevron Techron. If not , see if you can get Redline SI-1 , seems to have the highest PEA concentration. Run it as you drive daily, letting the cleaner sit on our injectors overnight is what gets them clean.