2004 Honda Accord V6 Piston Slap

[86cutlass307]

Afternoon all,

My wife's Accord is starting to have a very minor case of cold weather piston slap on startup. 210,000 miles, spent most of it's life on Valvoline SynPower 5w20 and does not burn a drop between 5K mile change intervals. I have tried Penn Ultra a couple of times and last winter I started using a very small amount of Lubro Moly to supplement each oil change but I think the results are probably negligible. Do you think this motor might be finally be a candidate for a jump to 5w30? This car spends 90 % of it's time at highway speed.

 

[lemonade]

Just my thought, First figure out if the slap will hurt your engine in long run, if it doesn't then i say forget about it especially when the slap goes away once it's warmed up. Second, fogure out what's the cause of it if you what to have it fixed. No oil is going to fix worn piston, ring or bad block...

No reason to use 30 instead of 20, can you explain a little your reason why you want to change to 30?

 

[JimPghPA]

With the high ambient temperatures of Texas and 210 K miles on the vehicle, I would try a XW-30 if it were mine. But do not be surprised if the thicker oil cost you a MPG or two.

GC (Castrol European formula 0W-30) would be my first choice though it is a very thick 30 (just below being a 40), because along with it being a very good oil, it also is great for preventing oil leaks of the main and other areas.

Only the European Formula is this outstanding oil. It performs better than 5W-30 or 10W-30 both in hot or cold.

What OCI have you used in the past? With GC and mostly highway you should easily be able to go 8K, or more with used oil analysis.

Also, is the cooling system well maintained?

 

[86cutlass307]

I read somewhere on here a while back that 5w20 was on the lower end of the scale of ability to absorb piston slap noise and 30 wts seem to do a little better. I think the post dealt mainly with Chevy LS motors of various ages and versions. The piston slap seems to come if the car sets for a day or two, and then doesn't come back on subsequent startups if the car is used for errands/short trips.

 

[229]

Originally Posted By: 86cutlass307
I read somewhere on here a while back that 5w20 was on the lower end of the scale of ability to absorb piston slap noise and 30 wts seem to do a little better. I think the post dealt mainly with Chevy LS motors of various ages and versions. The piston slap seems to come if the car sets for a day or two, and then doesn't come back on subsequent startups if the car is used for errands/short trips.


Have someone use GM top engine cleaner on it and adjust the valves and the noise just may disappear.

 

[skyship]

Changing from a 5/20 to a 5/30 won't make any difference to cold start noises. Adding Moly won't help either, but you might want to think about trying Liqui Moly Ceretec as that does have a reputation for reducing cold start rattles.

 

[86cutlass307]

The factory fill of the cooling system and water pump were changed out at the first timing belt service, and replaced with Honda Blue Type 2 at about 115K miles. I did a valve adjustement 2 summers ago at about 165 or 166K miles, replaced the coolant and all hoses under the hood, cooling, power steering, vacuum, fuel, etc. While the top end was apart I cleaned the upper intake, lower runners and EGR. It was mostly fuel/oil vapor residue from PCV. With the amount of driving my wife does I didn't want to chance a failure. Hoses seem to only fail when it's very cold or very hot. Tranny let go at about 188K and had a reman'd unit installed and it's working like a champ. I have used Redline SI-1 in a maintenance dose pretty regularly and the heads/valves and piston tops are clean, or as clean as they can be I guess, no major carbon tha I could see.

 

[friendly_jacek]

Originally Posted By: 86cutlass307
I read somewhere on here a while back that 5w20 was on the lower end of the scale of ability to absorb piston slap noise and 30 wts seem to do a little better.


Yap, I posted about it here: http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2658773#Post2658773

 

[A_Harman]

I have experimented with my LS1 Camaro, and found that thicker oil does nothing to quiet piston slap.