Under (valve)cover pics

[The_Eric]

I know how you guys like to see undercover shots, so here are some from our 2001 Hyundai Elantra. It has just under 65k miles on the ticker... The first 36k were dealer and quicky lube joint cared for.... Hey, it was the wife's parent's car. Anyway, her mother gave it to us, so from 36k on I've taken very good care of it, with one possible exception. In the pre-BITOG days, I'd change oil every 3k, but there was one stretch where we both lost track of the service interval. I can't say if it was 3k or 10k. Either way it likely didn't do much harm.

I've since started keeping meticulous records and since 53k the car has seen Kendall, Rotella T6, Ultra and now SSO, for what most would consider a ludicrously short interval....

At any rate the car is in excellent mechanical shape and uses no oil up to at least 5k miles.

When doing some cleaning and preening, I noticed a leaky valve cover gasket, I decided to replace it before it made a huge mess and while I was in there, I snapped a few pics. To be honest I'm not very impressed with the cleanliness, considering the miles and upkeep. What do you guys think?

 

[RamFan]

Lookin' good!

 

[nwjones18]

Looks great to me!

 

[chubbs1]

That first pic is a little dark, but the subsequent pics look fine. Just mostly some varnish. You could run some MMO if you want. I would run a quality conventional w/ 20% MMO. If you want to get rid of that pretty harmless varnish. Looks OK.

 

[SuperDave456]

No funky chunky stuff.
Only black oil (not a measure of cleanliness or oil life) and some varnish.
Neither I would consider a bad thing.

I would keep doing what you are doing.

 

[The_Eric]

Yeah, I just figured that with as many sort intervals as it's seen, it'd be cleaner. On the other hand, probably half of those 36k miles were one mile trips to the store and stop and go city driving, so I imagine no favors were done there.

 

[willix]

Not too shabby, I think the varnish that isn't very bad at all IMO may be from running the cheap bulk oils in the first 36,000.

If you find a preferred brand with a good reputation for cleaning abilities & stick with it. It will clean up over time.

 

[The_Eric]

Originally Posted By: willix
Not too shabby, I think the varnish that isn't very bad at all IMO may be from running the cheap bulk oils in the first 36,000.

If you find a preferred brand with a good reputation for cleaning abilities & stick with it. It will clean up over time.


I'm leaning towards this coupled with tons of short trip driving by an elderly lady...

 

[daves87rs]

Not bad!

 

[bodeh6]

Stick with PU for a while and in a year or so it should be cleaner.

 

[electrolover]

what were the ocis over the last 10k or so? it looks pretty ugly in there to me, but i dont care for varnish..

 

[electrolover]

heres mine with 140k, its a work in progress.

 

[demarpaint]

It doesn't look that bad. It would be interesting to see if the SSO can clean up the varnish.

 

[electrolover]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
It doesn't look that bad. It would be interesting to see if the SSO can clean up the varnish.


idk but i bet sso with kreen would make short work of it!

 

[demarpaint]

Kreen with cheap oil would clean it in short order too, no point in adding Kreen to a premium oil like SSO. I'd like to see SSO on its own.

 

[jim302]

Looks fine, especially for a car that probably saw a lot of short trips. No sludge, just dark oil (which is fine) and a small amount of varnish.

I would just run a high quality oil at a reasonable interval and not worry about it.

 

[ltslimjim]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Kreen with cheap oil would clean it in short order too, no point in adding Kreen to a premium oil like SSO. I'd like to see SSO on its own.


Yeah, come on now guys lets not go crazy. I'd use something like Formula Shell or Pennzoil conventional with Kreen for a typical short interval(if it were mid summer only 2k or 2 months).

Not bad, but could look about 15-20% better with a couple cleanup intervals, one may be all it needs with Kreen.

Personally? I wish the oil had drained more before the pics were taken. Mostly clean(clean bill of health anyway), but not quite there as far as near bare metal clean. Good overall. I think my Civic VX with almost 250,000 miles looks about like the OP's here(purchased at 230,000).

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: electrolover
heres mine with 140k, its a work in progress.


I'd say the work is complete.

 

[Propflux01]

Be a good time to try one of the Pennzoil products to see if it really does clean up to 40%!

 

[electrolover]

tim i about choked to death on my coffee when i read your sig.
thats awesome!!!