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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#857 of 877 Post #721 (pdalpsher oil analysis) by rubicon52 May 04, 2002 (1:39 am)
Pdalpsher provided a detailed description of his driving habits (not severe) and his oil analysis. The oil analysis (if I'm interpreting it correctly) indicates that his oil was "worn out" (change in viscosity, depletion of additives) at 2400 miles. His post and many others refutes Toyota's position about oil sludging being caused solely by poor owner maintenance and lends credibility to the other theories presented in this forum such as oil shearing, etc. The owner maintenance explanation never made sense to me. Although maintenance can vary greatly from owner to owner, if you look at, say, a million Honda Accord owners and a million Toyota Camry owners, one would expect the percentage of poor maintained and well maintained vehicles to be about the same for both makes. Also, Toyota buyers (in my opinion) if anything tend to be fairly responsible owners who are probably above average as far as maintenance. I only see 2 plausible explanations: 1. There is something about the design of certain Toyota engines that makes them more susceptible to sludging. 2. The sludge rate of Toyotas is comparable to that of other manufacturers, but forums like this have created mass hysteria in which Toyota owners are coming out of the woodwork with sludge compaints. Can anyone offer additional plausible explanations?
#858 of 877 PCV by armtdm May 04, 2002 (4:55 am)
Well, personally the PCV cleaning or replacement is a good try but I just find it impossible to believe. Over many many years, many many cars I have yet to see a PCV valve plugged up. In my Camry with 7500 mile changes the $4.50 part is cheap and I replace it but after 30,000 miles it appears as good as new. I just find that hard to believe. But, I use synthetic. Even other cars though, never had one of those suckers get filthy. I tend to agree with Bob on this one, the oil is simply being beat to crap in these post 97 engines and current oil can not handle the abuse. If I had a post 97 engine I would not bother with installing the new component.
#859 of 877 Shifty by duckshooter May 04, 2002 (5:53 am)
In reading your last post yesterday, something was just not right... and I realized today what it is. You said: "Fully 65% of these Americans said that 3,000 mile oil changes were "extremely important" ... "Okay, so let's presume then that of the 3,000 people who complained about sludge, that 65% changed their oil at 3,000 miles and still got sludge." "...So now we have 2,000 innocent victims..." This can't be said. The 65% figure may apply to the overall population, but when you define a non-random subset (sludgees) the 65% can't apply. Reason being - if you're in the other 35% of the general population to start with, you're more likely to be a sludgee (one of the 3000). Therefore, by necessity, the 65% figure cannot apply to the 3000 subset. In fact, you could make a strong case that only a few of the 3000 sludgees were in the original 65%. And then THIS would lead you to a few cases (a handful) of unexplained sludge - not 2000 of 3000. This is in keeping with what we've generally seen here - there are some cases of unexplained sludge but it's not evident that most cases (65%) are unexplainable. Jeff
#860 of 877 by Mr_Shiftright HOST May 04, 2002 (6:11 am)
Yes, of course, Jeff, you are no doubt correct, it was just a very rough attempt at putting a modicum of rationality into the argument. rubicon -- I don't believe we have anywhere near enough data to presume the sludge rates on neglected engines of other automakers at this time. -------------------------------------------------- Okay, I think we will begin to wind up this forum! TA DA! If anyone would like to say something that hasn't been articulated before (please don't repost your complaint, as you have been heard, believe me!), or to exchange info or e-mails with other participants ( you can click on their username to get their e-mail address) or just to say goodbye, or to download the Toyota access numbers in response #742, please take the time to do so. The forum will remain archived indefinitely and may be accessed by clicking on "archived topics", a heading that appears on the entry page for each of the Town Hall boards (you can't access archives while you are reading or typing IN a topic, like now, but only when you go to the page listing all the topics on the Board). I'd like to personally thank all of you who went the extra mile to set an example for courtesy and respect of other opinions, and especially to those who started off with guns blazing but who disarmed and became community members who were pleasant to be with. Most commendable! And, of course, to those who did worthwhile research, and dug out interesting facts and URLs for us. No forum between people is perfect and I know this one might not have been entirely satisfying, but in my opinion, life really isn't like TV or the movies. Sometimes the truth of the matter needs to be constantly searched for, and emerges slowly, with a lot of effort and patience. It doesn't just appear 5 minutes before the hour. Of course, I hope it doesn't take as long as X-Files either. Thanks again, all participants/Toyota/Edmunds management. May none of you see Sludge again. Mr Shiftright Host
#862 of 877 I'd like to suggest some things before this closes by bobistheoilguy May 04, 2002 (7:13 am)
to help people who keep asking about what oil to use to avoid this problem. Since this topic is going to be in depth and you're going to shut down this soon, I am going to set up a page specific to the toyota oil recommendation page so you may click on it and understand how to determine what to use based on these suggestions. watch my main page ( http://www.bobistheoilguy.com ) as I will provide a link directly to this issue sometime during this weekend. I have really enjoyed talking with you and hope that you were able to use what was put forth on this thread by toyota and others. bob
#863 of 877 Thanks by cliffy1 May 04, 2002 (8:46 am)
First, a huge Thank you goes out to Mr. Shiftright for maintaining the peace here. It would have been very easy to let this topic slide into another Complaint Station and no body would have been able to resolve anything. Next, thanks to folks with constructive comments like Duckshooter, Pilot, Bobistheoilguy and several others. Your comments were appreciated. You obviously care about what is happening to others. A very big thanks to those with sludge problems who posted here. Most of you were extremely civil, even when you disagreed with me, Shifty, the policy or Toyota in general. You have demonstrated that it is OK to disagree in a responsible manner. Believe it or not, your participation has really helped Toyota in modifying how it responds to customers. You are to be congratulated for this. It is very unusual that a company of the size of Toyota to respond in such a direct and personal way and you had a large say in making this happen. Finally, thanks to Bruce Ertmann. I don't know if all of you realize just how hard he worked to make this happen. He is one man in a very large corporation and had a number of internal issues he had to deal with in order to make this experiment work. I appreciate his honesty and candor in all of this. Anybody else who has problems in the future can contact him through the e-mail address he posted. He will not hesitate to do whatever possible to satisfy Toyota owners. I'll see you all on the other Toyota topics.
#864 of 877 Thanks everyone by cholowicki May 04, 2002 (10:31 am)
I will miss this topic, but in a way I am relieved to see it closed. I want to believe the new SPA will make sludge a non-issue for all Toyota owners, past and present. As for me, you will be able to catch me lurking/participating on the Jeep Liberty boards, as that is my new vehicle.
#865 of 877 3000K oil changes or every 3 months by paulo3 May 04, 2002 (1:09 pm)
or what ever comes first will prevent sludging. It is a simple principle that has been expounded upon for years.