2008 Saturn Aura XR, Unknown Dealer Fill

[indycolts570]

Greetings, first time poster, long time lurker! I registered so I can get everyone's input on this UOA. The car is a 2008 Saturn Aura XR, which I picked up for my fiance in July 2014. We experienced on-going cylinder 4 misfires which the dealer was unable to properly diagnose, and has since "stonewalled" us when we requested compression and leak-down tests. I replaced the cylinder 4 ignition coil and spark plug with a new ACDelco coil and NGK iridium plug back in August. This helped but the issue persisted. After I went over everything again, including cleaning the throttle body, I noticed some oil in the cylinder 4 spark plug tube. This leads me to believe that the valve cover gasket and/or spark plug tube seal is leaking. I ordered the parts but have yet to replace the gaskets. After cleaning the oil off of the cylinder 4 spark plug, the misfire seems to have gone away.

Anyway, we were unable to figure out what kind of oil or filter the dealership used when they originally serviced the vehicle. My guess was a 5w30 oil as that is what is recommended for the 3.6 V6. According to Blackstone's testing, it looks like the dealer used a 5w20 instead. When I changed the oil, I used PP 5w30 and a Bosch D+. So far, so good, but I would love to hear what everyone else thinks about the UOA. I also included the comments from Blackstone's tech:

Code:


OIL UNKNOWN DEALER FILL

MILES IN USE 3,981

MILES 83,889

SAMPLE TAKEN 11/5/2014



ALUMINUM 13

CHROMIUM 1

IRON 13

COPPER 3

LEAD 0

TIN 0

MOLYBDENUM 23

NICKEL 1

MANGANESE 1

SILVER 0

TITANIUM 0

POTASSIUM 6

BORON 70

SILICON 9

SODIUM 6

CALCIUM 2180

MAGNESIUM 12

PHOSPHORUS 700

ZINC 859

BARIUM 0



INSOLUBLES 0.2

WATER 0.0

FUEL %
ANTIFREEZE 0.0

FLASHPOINT ºF 395

SUS VIS 210ºF 52.4

cSt @ 212ºF 8.01



Thanks for the note. Most of the metals look ok.

A timing chain problem would likely show up as high iron, though

we've seen issues where a tension is bad and so the chain eats

into the aluminum housing. We do have aluminum here, but it could also

show piston wear or bearing wear in some engines. We'd lean towards the

aluminum maybe being from the misfire as opposed to a timing chain problem, but

it's hard to say. The viscosity is closer to 5W/20, but hat's fine. Run 4,000

miles and check back on aluminum. Hopefully it drops a little.

 

[jayg]

I had a very similar issue with a 4g63 turbo mitsubishi engine, The spark plug holes are in a valley that can collect pooled spilled oil. Fixed that and it cured the isse. If you found oil in there I'd fix those gaskets asap and likely not run into it again.

That PP 5w30 and any quality filter is a solid choice. (Personally I wouldn't spend the extra over an acdelco to get the bosch unless it was on sale)

 

[indycolts570]

Yeah the Bosch is overkill for this application, especially since the oil must be changed every 5,000 miles to maintain the powertrain warranty. That's why I went with PP and not Castrol Syntec Edge, which is what I normally use. The Aura is still running ok, no misfires yet, so I'm looking forward to our next UOA on this car. Hopefully, the aluminum wear isn't so high.

I'm paranoid since I started reading about the Aura. It seems that they have very common motor and transmission failures, and I just hope to God that neither of those issues plague our car. Which is why the note from Blackstone briefly touches on the timing chain. Granted, we do have a warranty through the dealership, but I doubt they would actually honor it if/when the timing chain stretches or the 3-5-R plate goes in the transmission.

In case anyone is wondering why we got the car when it has known motor and transmission issues, the dealer we purchased it from was very good to us in the past and it had a clean, 1 owner CarFax, all maintenance records were available, so we figured it was a no-brainer. Also, at the time of sale, our salesman said the car was a CPO through GM. We later found out that this wasn't the case.

 

[cptbarkey]

a friends 96 nissan quest had the same issue, misfire ended up being spark plug seal leaking.