Valve stem replacement

[nuchieboy]

well i know this has been covered and i searched but i was wondering if anybody has had their valve stems replaced because of a puff of blue smoke after the car has sat in the cold for a few days without being started....is there any other ways of preventing this? also how much would a job like this run me? thanks

[Tom 2000]

When I had my gen2, it would smoke at start-up like you described. I never bothered to fix it, as the car ran fine otherwise for the most part. However after several years, the carbon build up in teh combustion chamber would raise the compression ratio to the point where the engine would ping sometimes on regular gas.

I would then take it on a long trip and run this. It's not the standard Techron Fuel Injector Cleaner, but this one is formulated to clean the combustion chamber also.



It helped. Then to minimive the smoke from the oil burning at start up, I added a product called No-Smoke at Oil change.



I sold the car eventually, but it was cheap and effective. Try it first.

[nuchieboy]

thanks for the info...i dont use regular gas in my car anyways...i use 89 octane which is plus here...and every 4 or 5 fill ups i throw in a tank of 93 aka super...the car runs great...but i guess i will look into the smoke stuff...its almost nothing but i just dont want the car to get worse

[Mike Gerber]

I would simply monitor the oil consumption for a while before doing anything. If you are burning a quart or less every 1000 miles, I would just leave it alone. That minimal amount of oil consumption will not hurt anything. It's just not worth the $'s to fix IMHO.

PS: Unless your engine is pinging on regular gas, filling your car with midgrade or premium gas has no benefit. It does however, benefit the major oil companies profit margins.

Mike

[BlueFusion6851]

^My V6's valve stem oil seals are going out as well, and I've only noticed that maybe a quart of oil is burned every 3000 miles, it's a minor nuisance, but i just figure that i'd live with it.

[kamrhee]

what about using thicker oil or high mileage oil. I've experimented with this and it does help with the blue smoke at startup.

[BlueFusion6851]

You could do that, but just remember that the thicker oil is going to resist flow more than the lighter oil. I still end up using 5w30 in the winter because of the climatic difference between cali and minnesota. You can actually get away with using a 10w30 oil year-round and have no issues.

[nuchieboy]

Originally Posted by Mike Gerber

I would simply monitor the oil consumption for a while before doing anything. If you are burning a quart or less every 1000 miles, I would just leave it alone. That minimal amount of oil consumption will not hurt anything. It's just not worth the $'s to fix IMHO.


PS: Unless your engine is pinging on regular gas, filling your car with midgrade or premium gas has no benefit. It does however, benefit the major oil companies profit margins.

Mike

yea but regular has alot of shit in it...i would rather spend the extra 7 cents a gallon and put plus which burns cleaner...wont clog the fuel filter as often and def helps in the long run burning sediments in the fuel tank

[Mike Gerber]

Originally Posted by nuchieboy

yea but regular has alot of shit in it...i would rather spend the extra 7 cents a gallon and put plus which burns cleaner...wont clog the fuel filter as often and def helps in the long run burning sediments in the fuel tank

According to Click and Clack, the guys on public radio on Saturday mornings, most major oil companies use the same additive package in all their grades of gasoline. They now even advocate using regular in cars designed for premium. They say the car won't knock since all modern cars have a knock sensor. They go on to say you may not get all the performance out of the engine, but won't notice the difference unless you really drive with a lead foot.

Mike

[nuchieboy]

yea i would rather use a better grade...worth it in my opinion