Valvoline Maxlife 5w30, 9000 mi, 1999 Park Avenue

[09_GXP]

This oil sample is from my dad's car. This car has seen a very hard life, it gets ~1sec warmup from cold before heading out and the OCIs are just whenever my dad feels it is due. He used to just stop by a Jiffy Lube around 15k intervals but I have convinced him to let me change his oil from now on.

No big surprises to me in the sample. The car goes through a little coolant, runs hot at times, but still sounds great for the age. The top off oil was 0.5 qt Maxlife and 1.0 qt Carquest house brand.

 

[daves87rs]

That is quite a few miles....

 

[ChiTDI]

High Sodium and Potassium with a little coolant useage on a high mileage GM V6 lends me to think about manifold gaskets if you're going to go for another hundred k or more.

 

[5sfe91]

Yeah a very long run on maxlife, try a shorter run and watch levels.

Have you done the gaskets?

 

[chubbs1]

I agree w/ B-S on this one. Keep the OCI's in the 3-4k range, too many abrasives for long runs in this vehicle. I would just buy the Auto store "special of the month" and that is that. Thanks for sharing the UOA.

This vehicle is in its timebomb phase. I would forgo any expensive work.

 

[T-Keith]

You should seriously look at changing the lower intake gaskets. Is is a bit involved, but the new gaskets solve the problems. The only 3800 failures I've seen are from coolant leaks, and the long OCI is not helping here. I will guarantee the lower gasket is bad, as I'm guessing he's never changed the coolant. It is also not uncommon for the upper gasket to fail when the coolant gets low due to the EGR design.

To change the lower gaskets you will need a gasket set($50-$70) a new plastic coolant elbow($10), coolant and oil. Make sure to leave the EGR unplugged until you get all the air out of the engine or it will destroy the upper gasket as well, if it's not already shot.

 

[addyguy]

Just shorten the intervals with whatever sale oil you can get - car should keep runing for a while longer. That leak isn't atually that bad - maybe even just try some 'stop-leak' stuff, instead of doing the gaskets.

I don't think a 12-year old GM with 265,000 miles is worth putting a lot of time of money into.

 

[A_Harman]

"GM cars will run bad longer than most cars will run at all."

 

[addyguy]

Originally Posted By: A_Harman
"GM cars will run bad longer than most cars will run at all."


So....darn....true!

Seen it more times than I can count!