You are correct. There is every possibility that there was a complete engine rebuild 5,000 miles ago that the OP forgot to tell us about. Also possible that the car was damaged tremendously, but two cycles of HPL resolved it
Valve Cover Photos - 2016 Acura RDX w/161,000 miles
- Thread starter The Critic
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20,000 miles is 6+ oil changes for some of the people who don’t accept that this isn’t the 1970s anymore
Wow on how this thread is heading. Here's another way to look at it. The engine stayed clean no matter what oil was used. 
Does that mean that it applies to any and all engines? I doubt it.
Does that mean that it applies to any and all engines? I doubt it.Wow on how this thread is heading. Here's another way to look at it. The engine stayed clean no matter what oil was used.
That and relatively short ~7K miles OCIs with good syn oil ... I see mainly M1 and the 0W forcing or requiring a good base oil.
Agreed, but this engine is cleaner than other very well maintained engines with this mileage. I’m interested in whether it’s the HPL , or consistency, or careful driving…..Wow on how this thread is heading. Here's another way to look at it. The engine stayed clean no matter what oil was used.
Looks good 
My bet is the engine was well maintained with reasonable OCI's and used oil that met the mfg specs. Over the years I've seen plenty of engines with mileage in that ballpark or higher on this site, and in the wild that looked as good. But that engine looked about as good as it gets, so to say I've seen better in that mileage range would be a lie. OTOH I've seen neglected engines with half the miles that looked terrible.
and there is every possibility that a store bought name brand oil is ALL you need...
O yes it is.. It shows that you dont need a mail order oil to get good results...Just a name brand store bought oil and maintain it well..
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The earlier J35 VCM engines are very hard on oil.Oh my gosh! Those J35s are so terrible on oil! Your engine is going to explode at 8k intervals!
Very very nice. Probably the cleanest VCM engine I remember.
This is true! But once again it raises other points. Years ago I posted fill hole pictures of what many including myself here would consider a well maintained engine with about 80K miles of dealer oil changes and a local mechanic with a great following doing 3K OCIs. I know the history, the car [a 2000 Buick Century] was bought new by my parents, and given to me at around 80K miles if my memory is still serving me correctly. I learned a few things from that car. Here's two that stand out. One was blanket statements regarding OCIs often found here are meaningless and don't apply to everyone. You know statements like a dino oil can easily do 5K intervals, and synthetic oils 10K. My second point is synthetic oil is better than dino oil, even for shorter intervals, wasteful to some. FTR this is my observations and opinions.
I can't imagine what this would have looked at at 161K miles keeping up with 3K dino intervals. FTR the engine was mechanically sound and lived a long life after those pictures. I switched over to synthetic oil, and saw very slow improvement. My bet is in this example HPL oil would have done a nice job cleaning it up. The problem at the time I owned that car IIRC HPL didn't exist, or it was never mentioned here. I'm sure Amsoil's flagship product would have done well and a few off the shelf synthetic oils too, perhaps slower.
Averaging 20K miles a year so probably more highway driving than city, stop and go driving.
Regardless. Look great
Regardless. Look great
You just beat me to it. Until that ^^^ last post, nothing was said about driving habits. 7000 miles on a highway cruiser is nothing, 7000 miles of cold starts, stop and go driving without highway runs is altogether different. Blanket gushing about and crediting 0-20 oils is misplaced. A 10-30 would have done just the same. Lastly, engine cleanliness is great, but does not perfectly correlate with engine wear.
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I generally do not buy critical parts off Amazon anymore. I do not trust the sellers, or people who buy, then return old/used products as the new one.
You are saying this engine went many more miles and the situation was resolved using synthetic oil? That color shouts coolant mixture to me.
It is a normal upsell at the 105K timing belt service. All of the valves were fairly loose, even the exhaust valves. I doubt anything bad would have happened if the service was skipped, but your experience may vary.
Not muzzled and the difference was probably due to lighting. In person they looked the same.
No early oil change was performed. In fact this person never performed any oil changes early.
No history was omitted.
Valid point. But the last 14K has been city driving.
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Thanks for sharing. I assume VCM wasn’t disabled?
The top of the engine may be clean, but as @buster mentioned, we don’t know how the piston rings are.
The new owner (last 14K miles) has been doing mostly city driving. After the two 7K intervals of HPL, I recommended for him to go with 3-5K intervals using major brand 0W20 synthetic if he wants to keep it this clean.
VCM has NOT been disabled.
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