00 Lexus ES300 sludge @ 160K - Pics

[BigBird57]

My son purchased a 2000 Lexus ES 300 with 160k on the clock. The low oil pressure light flickered and he stopped driving the car. After a manual oil pressure test confirmed the worst, he dropped the oil pan and the sludge was hard and dry like pine bark chips on the oil pump pick up screen blocking the flow. After cleaning the pan and the oil pick up tube he has 17 psig at idle and 70 psig at 3k RPMs.
The engine is running smooth and we are hoping for the best. He has installed PYB 5w-30 SN/GF5 with a longer Purolator Classic oil filter with 8 oz of Seafoam in the crankcase.

Sludge Pics

 

[rshaw125]

Are these the engines with the PCV valve issues? If so I would address that and then do short oil changes with PP.

 

[DoubleWasp]

My guess is that either the previous owners were some old folks who didn't know or care about proper maintenance, or some of those folks who figure that because "it's a Lexus/Toyota/Honda" that they can pretty much just neglect it all they want, and it will keep going without a problem.

That is just horrible.

 

[exranger06]

Pretty sure this car has the notorious 3.0 sludge-factory.

 

[lexus114]

Originally Posted By: exranger06
Pretty sure this car has the notorious 3.0 sludge-factory.



It is, I just hope that he can save it.

 

[chubbs1]

I think you are doing the right thing by cleaning as much as you can and using a Grp II oil at short intervals. Grp II tends to be able to hold more soot/particulate than grp III and hopefully will clean you up. The only other thing I may suggest is using an HDEO 10w30 with a little Kreen. The Kreen is optional.

 

[Rand]

There is so much sludge I would just use your favorite sludge resistant oil and change frequently
IMO I'd probably use syn something on sale or Free after rebate.

if you start cleaning that sludge up aggressively chunks could break off and clog up parts of the engine... thats infinitely worse than where the sludge is now.

 

[Quest]

Aside from manually scraping the sludge/deposits off of those areas, try running some cleaners such as Kreen, AutoRx, etc.

Results may vary from one circumstances to another, but ultimately, we all want to restore this engine mechanically as much as possible.

Remember: anything you do now, short of taking it apart and dunk it (or put it through block steam cleaning) is "best effort" only.

Good luck on you/your son's endeavours.

Q.

 

[TFB1]

Short OCI intervals and a filter other than the PL Classic(Pure One is good)... I've had startup noise with the Classic and would just as soon use the OCD...

 

[Bgallagher]

Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
My guess is that either the previous owners were some old folks who didn't know or care about proper maintenance, or some of those folks who figure that because "it's a Lexus/Toyota/Honda" that they can pretty much just neglect it all they want, and it will keep going without a problem.

That is just horrible.


Oh but its a (toyota or honda) it will last forever. Case in point.

I think 2-3k oil changes with seafoam and PYB will help. You want gradual inprovement, not one fail swoop...

 

[ARB1977]

If it isn't broke why fix it. LOL. It should clean up, nice and slow is key.

 

[Artem]

My guess is that someone followed the 7,500 mile factory OCI recommendation using el cheapo dino with an even cheaper oil filter.

 

[tig1]

I would dump the PBY and start using M1 5-30HM. This combo is working well in my grandsons 02 Toyota Camry V6 that he bought last August. We believe this is a Toyota sludger as well. He is doing 6 month OCIs.

 

[Quest]

someone may have skipped oil change entirely, period.

Q.

 

[4ever4d]

A classic case of lack of or no maintenance. That is ugly. Good luck with the clean up.

 

[BigBird57]

Yes it is the engine with the PCV design issue. Thanks to the mod for linking the pics.

 

[BigBird57]

Thanks for the replies and encouragement. He has a $4500 in this car which is in good condition otherwise. My son is going to install an oil pressure gauge so we can monitor the clean up. We chose the Purolator Classic because we could not get the Pure One to cross over to the longer oil filter. Slow and steady is the plan. We want to dissolve rather than breaking off chunks.
We will post the after pics when he sees about 7k total clean up time. We plan to change oil every 1500 to 2000 miles with oil filters in between. This all hinges on continued good oil pressure readings otherwise we will drop the pan sooner. It is easy to drop the pan for inspection.

 

[RISUPERCREWMAN]

Yup thats a headscratcher! Owch!

 

[Tones]

Is this one of the engines had small drain ports on the heads that trapped oil up there and cooked it pretty good? If the oil pan looks like that, I wonder what the valve train looks like? I would use some short OCIs with ARX to clean up but would then switch to a good synthetic.

 

[hattaresguy]

I have seen a good synthetic like Mobil 1 work wonders on motors like this.

3k mile changes, for 30k-40k miles and it will be clean as new.