Family friend’s 2006 Toyota Matrix, 171k miles, says he usually takes it in for the $30 oil change specials at 5-6k miles since he bought it new. The windshield sticker says Penz conventional oil so I assume he gets conventional oil changes. Not bad for the mileage. It’s the original valve cover gasket wasn’t as brittle as I’ve seen before. Went ahead and replaced the tensioner o ring, and the spark plugs while I was in there.
Under valve cover pics
- Thread starter barkingspider
- Start date
I would have expected it to look a little better than that. Perhaps many short trips or the OCI was a little longer than stated. Still, nothing wrong wit it. Thanks for sharing the pics.
How many miles on the USD spark plug? Quite a bit of electrode tip gone...
That doesn't look great for 5-6k intervals in my opinion.
Not great imo. Conventional oil doesn't always cut it, especially with a 5K-6K OCI.
Synthetic oil for the same OCI probably would have done a lot better.
I don't mean this in a bad way, trust me, because this much varnish mean little if anything. 
However, every time I see an engine with this varnish(even before reading the thread), the first engines that come to mind are TOYOTA. Sometimes I am wrong but, not often. Toyota engines seem to experience this varnish quite early all the way to 300K-400K miles until the vehicles are in the boneyard. IDKY Toyotas are so susceptible to this varnish(IMO, mores than some other makes) and continue to run & run & run...so well, so smooth!
However, every time I see an engine with this varnish(even before reading the thread), the first engines that come to mind are TOYOTA. Sometimes I am wrong but, not often. Toyota engines seem to experience this varnish quite early all the way to 300K-400K miles until the vehicles are in the boneyard. IDKY Toyotas are so susceptible to this varnish(IMO, mores than some other makes) and continue to run & run & run...so well, so smooth!
Wonder what that HPL cleaner would do in there for a 5K interval?
Now would be the time to try a cleaner IMHO.
Note the mini-chunks in pic #5 (lower right of valve cover as pictured.
I wonder how much better it'd look if the 5-6K OCIs had been 4-5K.
171K though.....
Note the mini-chunks in pic #5 (lower right of valve cover as pictured.
I wonder how much better it'd look if the 5-6K OCIs had been 4-5K.
171K though.....
The perfect candidate imo for a good engine cleaner.
I see nothing wrong with the picture. Cleaner not required.
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That's the first thing I noticed. No wear rings on the cam lobes whatsoever. I see a lot of cam pics here where the engine is spotless, but there's always heavy wear scars on the cam lobes. No scarring at all here!
Nothing wrong with this engine. It's fine. Oil did it's job.
Switch to a HM synthetic for a few oil changes and it will look awesome in there, but totally not necessary. Engine cleaning not required.
Switch to a HM synthetic for a few oil changes and it will look awesome in there, but totally not necessary. Engine cleaning not required.
I would have thrown a PCV valve at it also, that has probably never been done.
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just switch to a hdeo
Looks good
Why did you downgrade to platinum? Denso does make an iridium TT
Why did you downgrade to platinum? Denso does make an iridium TT
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