I'm posting this UOA up for a friend of mine that has aquired a 1998 VW Beetle 2.0L 4-cyl a little while ago.
This car has quite the history since he got it! To start, it pretty much burns up any 30 weight oil in very short order! I mean, the entire crankcase will be sucked dry in 2,000 km of driving. Having said that, my not very car savvy friend has run this engine almost dry before, several times might I add!!! Switching to a 40 weight helped a bit, and finally, we've decided on Mobil1 5W50 which seems to have almost completely stopped the oil usage problem. Now it only uses 1/4 to 1/2 qt every 5,000 km, which is not all that bad. I haven't got around to doing a compression test for him yet to see if the rings or valve guides are bad (or perhaps even a head gasket problem).
This leads me into my next bit of info. This car seems to produce a ton of white/gooey /milky substance underneath the oil fill cap (inside the valve cover basically). To me, that is definitely a tell-tale sign of antifreeze ingestion into the crankcase.
So, at only 5,000 km, we decided to drop the oil, have it sampled, and change it just to be on the safe side. It was refilled with new Mobil1 5W50 and a new filter. We cleaned all of the white goo inside the filler neck and underneath the cap, and it returned within a few days of driving.
However, the analysis was quite surprising. NO antifreeze found!!! Here it is:
5,000 km on oil and filter
(1.5 months approximate time)
135,000 km total on the car / engine.
Driving is mostly highway, but includes stop and go traffic at least twice a day.
Al 3
Cr 0
Fe 7
Cu 1
Pb 2
Sn 0
Moly 68
Ni 0
Mn 0
Ag 0
Ti 0
K 0
B 102
Si 5
Na 8
Ca 2303
Mg 15
P 757
Zn 901
Ba 0
Viscosity @ 212F: 75.4 Sus
Flashpoint: 405 F
Fuel: Antifreeze: 0.0 %
Water: 0.0 %
Insolubles: 0.3 %
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
This car has quite the history since he got it! To start, it pretty much burns up any 30 weight oil in very short order! I mean, the entire crankcase will be sucked dry in 2,000 km of driving. Having said that, my not very car savvy friend has run this engine almost dry before, several times might I add!!! Switching to a 40 weight helped a bit, and finally, we've decided on Mobil1 5W50 which seems to have almost completely stopped the oil usage problem. Now it only uses 1/4 to 1/2 qt every 5,000 km, which is not all that bad. I haven't got around to doing a compression test for him yet to see if the rings or valve guides are bad (or perhaps even a head gasket problem).
This leads me into my next bit of info. This car seems to produce a ton of white/gooey /milky substance underneath the oil fill cap (inside the valve cover basically). To me, that is definitely a tell-tale sign of antifreeze ingestion into the crankcase.
So, at only 5,000 km, we decided to drop the oil, have it sampled, and change it just to be on the safe side. It was refilled with new Mobil1 5W50 and a new filter. We cleaned all of the white goo inside the filler neck and underneath the cap, and it returned within a few days of driving.
However, the analysis was quite surprising. NO antifreeze found!!! Here it is:
5,000 km on oil and filter
(1.5 months approximate time)
135,000 km total on the car / engine.
Driving is mostly highway, but includes stop and go traffic at least twice a day.
Al 3
Cr 0
Fe 7
Cu 1
Pb 2
Sn 0
Moly 68
Ni 0
Mn 0
Ag 0
Ti 0
K 0
B 102
Si 5
Na 8
Ca 2303
Mg 15
P 757
Zn 901
Ba 0
Viscosity @ 212F: 75.4 Sus
Flashpoint: 405 F
Fuel: Antifreeze: 0.0 %
Water: 0.0 %
Insolubles: 0.3 %
Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.