i just got an extra car. a 2001 impala ls with the 3800 engine. It seems these engines are fairly easy on oil. just wandered if anyone has settled on a favorite oil and filter.
3800 series II any favorites?
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How many miles on it? What OCI are you planning on? Probably any 5w30 SM/GF4 dino is suitable. If you're trying to go 5K, Pennzoil and Halvoline are both good choices. If you are trying to pinch pennies, Formula Shell or Citgo will do a good job at 3K. If it is high miles, consider Valvoline Maxlife.
GrtArtiste
GrtArtiste
thanks everyone. car has 76k on it. i think i will go 3-4k with some havoline. then send a uoa in to make sure i don't have an intake gasket issue. then maybe some PP,GC or mobil1 EP.
The 3.8 doesn't have the intake gasket issue. It's the 3.1 and the 3.4 that have problems.
Wrong i have a 3.8 olds and i had the intake casket leak.
I'm not saying that you cannot have a intake gasket leak in the 3.8. I was simply stating that it is not one of the "infamous" gm engines w/ that problem.
Intake gasket leaks are NOT inevitable on the 3.8 as w/ the other 2 engines mentioned.
I have 140k on my engine (SC version). No leaks, doesn't burn oil. I ran Valvoline Syn. one summer and I thought the engine seemed to like it as well as any oil I've tried in it. I did think it ran a bit better or sounded better at least, on M1 0w-40 then M1 5w-30 (went a bit thinner in the winter) fwiw.
3.8 series 2 are near 100% leakers and I would UOA on next change. Also worth keeping an eye on coolant levels, edges of plastic mainfold under the shroud for coolant drips. It's not the engine that's infamous - this is all GM for blame in engineering and public be ****ed corporate creed.
I have personally poured over everything avalible on this site and elsewhere on the web-a-tron with respects to the GM intake gasket problem and weather or no the 3.8 is affected. After doing this for over a week I thought I had came to the conclusion that it was not and that the 100% failure rate was w/ the 3.1 and 3.4.
Being that I am an owner of a Series II 3.8 you could imagine that I would be very interested in this subject. Since you know that the 3.8 has the 100% failure rate, please do me the favor of pointing me in the direction of where you found this information.
The class action lawsuit in Canada points to the 3.1, 3.4, 3.8 and 4.3 liter engines as having the intake manifold issue. I found this with a quick search on that web-a-tron thing. With a thing called Google.
If you check some of the GM oriented discussion forums you'll find lots of references to the 3800 with intake gasket leaks.
News Site
Class action list of vehicles
Another site naming the 3.8 as a leaker
What an amazing thing search engines are.
Cool, thanks for the links.
I serously looked hard for this info.
I'll still wait until I get my UOA back to see if I have a problem yet.
I serously looked hard for this info.
I'll still wait until I get my UOA back to see if I have a problem yet.
I believe in longer OCI's (7.5k), but if I had that engine in a car (and I never will) I would do 3k OCI with the cheapest oil I could find. I would do a UOA every other oil change and I would monitor the coolant level closely.
The 3800 Series II had its own intake/coolant problem. The upper plenum would warp and allow coolant into the lower section. If left long enough, it could allow enough coolant into the intake runners to hydrolock the engine.
They also had lower intake gasket problems, though not as common as the 3100 Chevy V6 was.
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