high mileage oil = PROBLEMS!

[94cylcamry]

Hey all,

Just jumping in to see if this has happened to anyone else.

My Camry's been leaking oil since it was passed down to me three years ago. It's never really been a problem, but we finally broke down and replaced a whole bunch of seals this year when the water pump went out. Got the cam, crank, oil pump, etc. Not long after that we stuck on a new oil pan, because the old one was beat and the gasket had been leaking anyway, and also got the valve cover gasket. I was so surprised, for three weeks the car didn't leak a drop of oil.

Well...it came time to change the oil again, and I decided to switch to Castrol High Mileage Oil. We'd been using regular Castrol GTX anyway, and high mileage isn't synthetic so I figured there wouldn't be problems. The car has 186,000 miles on it and has never had anything but regular oil.

Well I'll be damned if it's not leaking again! I have to get it up on the blocks and see where it's coming from, but has this happened to anyone else?

Thanks!

[islandboy57]

So everything stopped leaking, and only started leaking again after an oil change? It's not residual oil that spilled during the oil change? My friend has a '93 5S Camry and I think the oil filter is mounted in that same annoying horizontal position like the 1MZ. There's always oil dripping and burning off, but maybe I'm just messy.. Ha ha!

I haven't had any problems with "high mileage" oil. That's what I use in the 1MZ right now actually, which had a really annoying oil leak which we attemtped to fix but it came back - albeit it a much smaller leak. When I change its oil this month I'll probably use Mobil1 "high mileage" 10W-40 synthetic. Other than leaky valve seals which burns a little oil out the exhaust on each cold start, I've got no problems on high mileage oil.

[94cylcamry]

Well it's definitely not residual oil, and I didn't spill any filling it up, or from the filter(which, yes, is in a dumb spot). Hmmm.

[projektvertx]

I've been using Castrol GTX High Mileage since 121K miles, now almost at 224K and no leaks, at all.

HM will make the seals expand, in your case, stopping the leak briefly, but not removing the problem. It's like putting ice on a broken arm, it'll numb it for a bit, but the arm is still broken...

[73sport]

So does it leak when its running, when its parked or is it unknown?

What did you seal the pan with? Are the oil seals installed true to the surface and there was no damage? Another factor is the rotating parts. Any of them have a grove where the sealing surface is?

There are many reasons for leaks and this one may have nothing to do with the oil change, you know, just coincidental perhaps.

Take a look through this, it may offer some insight.

Assembly, Start-up and break in of New/rebuilt engines. . .

Hey, I added a section on seals just for you!