98 XLS, 500 mile drive home, Treat for sludge before?
My in-laws are giving my wife and I a 98 Avalon XLS with 180k on it. The only real common problem that I know about these cars is sludge in the oil system. The car was bought new by my wife's grandfather, passed down to her father, and now to us. Both of them were engineers and a bit anal about maintenance, which is great for us. I am an auto shop teacher so I plan to continue taking car of the car. My main question is should I put in a can of seafoam or something to help combat any potential sludge before we take the 500 mile trip home? As of right now the oil is clear on the dipstick, but I can see carbon on the walls of what little I can see below the oil cap. I have no idea what the sludge condition of the car may be, but I know that the oil was always changed every 3000 miles, so I assume there might be no problem at all.
On that note, this car will be a commuter car and will probably be seeing 400 miles per week. Has there been any consensus in the Avalon owning community on the best brand of oil to use? I have a connection at a dealership where I can buy cennex brand full synthetic oil for dirt cheap (<$2 per quart). I figure that as long as I change it every other month, it should be good to go.
Anyway, I think I am in the clear for now, but I'd love to take this baby to the 300k mark if I treat it well...
__________________ As iron sharpens iron,
So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.
Since it was changed every 3k, sludge shouldn't be a problem. Removing the oil cap doesn't show what's under the valve cover. If you want, you can remove it to check for sludge, like 10 bolts if I remember.
I'll check it at home, I may also add some seafoam just in case. I just found out that the oil has 300 miles on it. So a long term run of some seafoam will be a nice assurance that everything is running clean.
__________________ As iron sharpens iron,
So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.
If the oil's been changed regularly, chances are good there's no sludge build up.
Looking in the oil fill hole isn't a great way to check. There's a baffle just inside the hole, so you can't get a good look inside. And Toyota put a black gritty-looking coating on the baffle which looks a lot like sludge.
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Got a question, a story, and a suggestion
Is the 98 xls i4 or v6?
I have a 99 1mz v6 220k with no sludge. Is yours a 1mz?
And suggestion: Since you're going for 500 miles, I'd go with autorx instead of seafoam. Drive the 500 miles, and a little more, then drain, change filter, refill. Read about autorx (ARX) on bobistheoilguy.com and on autorx.com.
Avalons only have the V6. Yeah, only keep seafoam in for ~100miles. There was a thread on here about Auto-RX did nothing in a member's engine. So I would just stick to 3k OCIs.
My wife's 97 XL has 135k and I run mobil1 5w30 ext perf. since 20k at 10k intervals using seafoam 50-100 miles before dropping the oil. I replaced the valve cover gaskets at 126k to stop the leaks and check for sludge. If you want to see how well seafoam works search the thread "Has anyone seafoamed their 4.0 yet" on the second gen Tacoma forum. I'm the last post and there's a picture of my wife's 3.0 with the valve covers off. By the way no smoking in this engine and runs like a dream.
It seems a lot of people wanted to do something for their cars and ended up doing something TO them. There might be sludge in my engine. As long as it is not causing problems, why should I care? If it does make a problem, it will block the oil filter. (WAY before the pickup screen).
I use a ph-3600 filter, just in case... There's a post in here about making a heat shield for it - "bigger oil filter"
Avalons only have the V6. Yeah, only keep seafoam in for ~100miles. There was a thread on here about Auto-RX did nothing in a member's engine. So I would just stick to 3k OCIs.
Did the owner have sludge, tried ARX, and no improvement? I called ARX, inventor picked up, we had a good chat about toyota engines, says most people with sludge aren't using the product correctly. I believe that, it's pretty involved.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WetOne
My wife's 97 XL has 135k and I run mobil1 5w30 ext perf. since 20k at 10k intervals using seafoam 50-100 miles before dropping the oil. I replaced the valve cover gaskets at 126k to stop the leaks and check for sludge. If you want to see how well seafoam works search the thread "Has anyone seafoamed their 4.0 yet" on the second gen Tacoma forum. I'm the last post and there's a picture of my wife's 3.0 with the valve covers off. By the way no smoking in this engine and runs like a dream.
Nice pic. But no pre-treatment pics? Probably didn't have a problem anyways, like my 220k engine. I think that's what BonzoGonzo's trying to say: don't mess with it if there isn't a problem.
Anyways, After reading that thread, sounds like those posters were discussing SF as maintenance. 1/3 1/3 1/3 is not what SF says if you're working with sludge. It's 1.5oz SF per qt of oil.
To clean carbon, SF website says 1oz SF per gallon of gas. The smokeout ver is a quicker method. But sounds like posters were not following directions and driving aggressively for 2-5 miles after using SF.
I'm sure we did'nt have a starvation problem. But when the valve covers were off there was accumulated sludge in the covers so I soaked them in a 5 gal bucket to clean them then painted them with black epoxy. If you look closely at the picture you can see where the oil with the seafoam was slung by the rotating components and the pattern it left. I think the OP was interested in what he could do to clean any accumulated sludge. By the time you have a problem some damage has probably occured. These engines routinely go over 300k if maintained well.
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1999 Toyota Avalon
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