1994 Taurus SHO 3.0L with about 150k on it.

Blown head gasket. Bad cell phone picture.

I think Mitsubishi laser etched certain cylinders for oil retention reasons. I'm not 100% sure that what we are seeing here, but, I'd bet a dollar.

Years ago, Mitsubishi pioneered a system where cylinders were laser etched in specific patterns. The etching produced deep, uniform, microscopic oil retention pores. The result was greatly reduced cylinder wear, especially towards the end of engine life, at the point wear accelerates.

I had a radiator hose pop off which caused it to overheat and blow the gaskets while warping the heads at the same time.

Had to replace my valve cover gaskets this past weekend took the chance to take some pics.

144k on the engine, the head was rebuilt 35K miles ago.
Cams and Bearing Caps are still varnished up (the head was one of my spares i had laying around, i didnt send the cams or caps to the machine shop I should've but eh)

2002 Passat 1.8t with 116k miles. Mostly Mobil1 0w40 used. Badly leaking headgasket replaced, along with ORIGINAL timing belt. Some varnish, no sludge. Inside of valve cover was gunked up pretty good.

Are you sure those aren't my pics?







But mine had less than 60K at this point. '04 Audi A4

Mine was also M1 0w40

Is that engine a "sludger" ?

It's a sludger - VW even issued an extended warranty but I don't know how many of those they carried through because you had to document use of their special oils. I'm happy this new-to-me 1.8t had a steady diet of Mobil1 0-40, but I'm still going with HDEO for the rest of its life more than likely.

CBR, I was impressed at how similar our pics looked too!

That was supposed to say VALVE COVER gasket.

Yeah, they are sludgers. VW/Audi spec'd too long an OCI, and they cook the oil in half the time. You should see what they look like when people ran conventional oil for the recommended OCI.

Great running engines though, small turbo engine with lots of torque right off idle. 20 valve 4 cyl - I think they were between 180 and 200 HP depending on the application.

ECOboost 12 years ago.

And it was common to have PCV system failures requiring full-scale system replacement. The effects would be pressurizing the crankcase with boost and pushing oil out of all the seals. Also leaking cam gasket seals. My pictures were from the second valve cover gasket replacement in less than 60k. First was done under warranty.

My '98 BMW 328is with 108k miles. Just had the valve cover gasket (along with many other things) done today so I snapped a few pictures. Oil changes from new were always some form of synthetic following the OLM (usually M1 5w-30), the past 30k were done using LL-01 oils (M1 0w-40 and now BMW 5w-30). I posted a UOA of my last oil change on here a while back.

2006 Cadillac SRX LY7 3.6L "high feature V-6". Known in Australia as the Alloytec. 161K miles, some synthetic, some blend, some dino, lots of neglect. Replacing a STRETCHED primary timing chain.

Holy varnish Batman!!!