Engine Sludge/Oil Gelling--Toyota's Customer Response - READ ONLY

877 messages, Last post on May 09, 2002 at 5:24 AM

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#831 of 877 pdalpsher , and all others..... by bobistheoilguy May 03, 2002 (4:42 am)
In this case, he has a higher than norm silicon and I'd look for a induction leak or need of a new air filter.(iron slightly elevated). Nothing too serious but worth looking at.(also silicon could be part of the detergents.) Lead is abnormally high and only comes from the rod (crank) bearings. This also is used in some engine flushes that may have been used previously. Now as for viscosity Shear..This is exactly what I have stated before and now we have someone else posting a great example of my argument as to what is happening to the oil therefore causeing sludge. lets look at this analysis and hopefully toyota themselves will see what I was saying here. pdalpsher's viscosity in 2400 miles on a 10w30 penzoil has gone from a kinematic viscosity of 30 to a mid kinematic grade of 20wt. This is what I was showing where these high performance engines are ripping the oil apart due to excessive shear. (This is not a engine defect. The lubrication industry has made changes (1996) and alot of them are using price competitive additives.) (more on the effects of oil shearing .. http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/oilshear.htm ) Once the oil starts to lower in viscosity, more heat becomes a part of this factor due to lower viscosity and shear. This is why the TBN is spent completely out due to higher levels of heat put on the oil because of the lower wt thus oxidation and acid build up starts to occur and the detergents/ antioxidents are wasted trying to keep the acids from forming. Once this level is reached, this oil will then start to gell if run longer. The VI additives that have been destroyed now become a part of the contaminent process causing the oil to thicken into the gellation process and onward to black death. In this case pdalpsher, I would seriously consider useing a different oil. One that might provide a better VI #. A lot of full and synthblends don't rely as much on VI additives as some basic dinos and will take more to shear it down. I would then run the oil to no more than 3k with another sample until you can see an improvement in viscosity retention by using oil analysis. I hope this helps you all to understand that this is a high performance engine that is design to deliver excellent perfomance but also demands more attention to maintenance proceedures. This design has been used for many years and even before 97 but due to the oil industry's endevor to follow epa standards and such, They (lubrication industry) has made many changes (1996, 2001, and now mid 2003 a new change is proposed) and this in my opinion is what has caused this problem and not the engine design. For more basic information on oil analysis... http://theoildrop.server101.com/whatisoilanalysis.htm PS, This post is not to stir up or alarm anyone but to help you understand for those of you that are searching for cause and effects or what why and how to avoid this problem again.
#832 of 877 so bobistheoilguy suggests by krzyss May 03, 2002 (5:50 am)
that there is/was disconnect between lubricant and motor industry. Engine maintenance procedures might have been developed with different oils than the ones available on the market. Krzys
#833 of 877 Not exactly, by bobistheoilguy May 03, 2002 (6:01 am)
There is plenty of oils that can do this job up to the specified 7500 mile normal service but you must realize that not all oils are or will be created equal as this oil sample suggests. Toyota is the only motor company that has this kind of design and is why it is such a reliable engine but the lubrication industry is stretched between consumers who want cheap oil changes, epa wanting to vacate all smog, some manufactures who want cat convert damage reduced, and some consumers who want better wear protection. This is why so many types of oil's exist and why so much confusion as to what is or is not the best. Amazing enough even regular ase master mechanics have no concept on oil basics other than personal experience and unfortunatly too often people rely on the mechanic for oil information which in some cases he may or may not give correct advise due to his limited knowledge on the subject. This is one of my primary duties in my business is to educate shop mechanics as well as business people who own $$$$ of heavy equipment on basic lubrication fundimentals to assist in reducing lubrication problems that most don't even know exist.
#835 of 877 comments by jj35 May 03, 2002 (6:14 am)
1. Regarding convincing and compelling evidence, all that Toyota has said about oil changes is that if I follow my manual I won't get sludge. But, I followed my manual and did get sludge. After having the sludge, I am now changing my oil more frequently than the manual says, but am I doing it enough? Immediately following the sludge, I was going every 3,000 - 4,000 miles on Castrol, but switched to Castrol Syntec. Just had my first oil change on the Syntec after a little over 4,000 miles (and about 3 months for those interested in the time component). 2. 0.1% occurrence rate for sludge - where did this come from? Toyota has said that they have received around 3000 complaints of sludge out of 3.3 million engines sold. This is not an "occurrence rate" for sludge. This is simply what Toyota says it is - the percentage of owners they say have complained about sludge based on total engines sold. Early in this discussion, I asked tmsusa1 for information on the total number of sludged engines that they are aware of (not just "complaints", but including those that Toyota may have repaired under warranty or diagnosed with sludge, but owners never complained). I also requested seeing this number by vehicle and by year. I have not read a single sludge report for the Highlander or Celica or any 2002 vehicles, but I assume that they are included in the total 3.3 million sold figure. I was specifically interested in the number of sludged Siennas (1998 - 2000 Siennas would be good) in comparison to the total Siennas sold in this time frame because there has been some speculation that the failure rate is higher in the Sienna. tmsusa1 did not respond directly to these prior questions, and it probably goes back to being information that Toyota does not want to disclose publicly. 3. pdalpsher, thanks for posting your oil analysis results. I have thought about getting them done, but haven't done so yet. I think bobistheoilguy suggested it, too. You have convinced me to get it done. I have been using Castrol Syntec, so it would be interesting to see how it is holding up. And you have a good question - should you change your oil every 2,000 or 2,500 miles based on this analysis? One analysis on one brand of oil is probably not enough to make a definitive statement on this. Change oils and analyze again around 2,500 miles.
#836 of 877 Another question about the .1% by cliffy1 May 03, 2002 (6:30 am)
If I remember correctly, that figure represents the number of people who have complained. Of those, I would be very curious to hear how many were complaining in hopes of having Toyota pay for their negligence. I'm not talking about the Catgems and JJ35s of this world. I'm talking about the people who really did ignore the service schedule in dramatic fashion. The people who change their oil once over 20K miles or worse. What I am getting at here is that I am sure there are more than 3000 sludged Toyotas hanging around. Whatever the actual figure is, you can be sure that a large percentage of them really did abuse their cars. Many of those realize the error of their ways and didn't register complaints with Toyota. It is also likely that some went ahead and complained anyway in hope of getting a big corporation to pay for their negligence. I would be curious to hear how widespread this is from Toyota.
#837 of 877 Complaints by jj35 May 03, 2002 (6:55 am)
Yes, Cliffy, I agree that there are probably some of the sludged Toyotas that were likely abused. You bring up a good point because I don't know how Toyota would eliminate the "abused" ones from the total without a definition of abuse and also, if all Toyota dealers treated their customers like mine treated me, then Toyota has no idea how frequently the oil was changed, because they would not even accept or look at receipts until the SPA came out. Toyota could possibly use records to estimate total engines sludged where the owner provided evidence of at least one oil change per year, as requested in the SPA.
#838 of 877 jj35 by cliffy1 May 03, 2002 (7:01 am)
I guess you are correct about that. Defining a word like "abuse" is like defining the word "love". It means different things to different people. You are also correct that some dealers have not been very good at handling customers in all of this. Combine that with people who would lie about their service history and there probably isn't a way to answer my question.
#839 of 877 thanks for feedback by pdalpsher May 03, 2002 (7:47 am)
on my oil analysis. I'm a lot more comfortable knowing what is going on so I can adjust my maintenance practices accordingly. I'll also put myself on a 2500 mile interval until I see improvement. The 2500 will work well with the 5k intervals in the manual...I'll just double up on the oil changes. I'll also get the air filter replaced at my next change. I'd also be interested in TMS's comments...particularly if an engineer helps analyze the test results from their perspective. I'm not hard on my vehicle and I really don't consider my driving to be 'severe' during the time this oil was running in my car. This summer the weather puts me into severe (90+ temps and humidity) so I stay on a frequent change schedule year-round. For me it looks like 5k would be too long on this brand of oil.