Unknown oil/ unknown mileage 1996 Saturn sl2

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Cooper

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This is not my car!!!! My brother-in-law inhereted the car from his grandmother when she passed away, he is 15 and getting ready to drive. His grandfather always told her to never change the oil, it was a waste, but to just make sure it was full. Well, I believe she topped it off whenever the oil light came on, but thats it. Who knows what oil she used in the car. I suggested he get a UOA from the local lube wholesaler as they offer it for 19.95 with a TBN. This is the info that he gave to me over the phone today.......He lives in another state.
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EQUIPMENT MAKE: Saturn
EQUIPMENT MODEL: 1.9L 4-cyl SL2
FUEL TYPE: gas
OIL USE INTERVAL: unknown
OIL TYPE AND GRADE: unknown
MAKE-UP OIL ADDED: a lot
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MILES ON OIL: unknown
MILES ON UNIT: 237,549
SAMPLE DATE: 05/04/2007
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ALUMINUM: 46
CHROMIUM: 4
IRON: 589
COPPER: 8
LEAD: 56
TIN: 1
MOLYBDENUM: 80
NICKEL: 2
MANGANESE: 0
SILVER: 0
TITANIUM: 0
POTASSIUM: 2
BORON: 56
SILICON: 68
SODIUM: 321
CALCIUM: 2155
MAGNESIUM: 455
PHOSPHORUS: 596
ZINC: 766
BARIUM: 8
TBN: 0.1
SUS VISCOSITY @ 210 DEG. 98.8
FLASHPOINT IN DEG. F 325
FUEL % 9.3
ANTIFREEZE % 1.1
WATER % 2.6
INSOLUBLES 8.3
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I find this UOA quite discouraging. The car acually runs!!! It does smoke some when accelerating from what he told me, but not that bad. Any suggestions besides 12 ARX treatments????
 
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Wow. I think this is by far the worst we have ever seen here. Even that Lincoln that went 26,000 miles on an oil change wasn't this bad.

Who knows what the future hold for this car? 2 or 3 short flushes with dino, and the engine might just use some oil and be fine, or all the junk coming loose could unravel everything. Saturns are fairly reliable engines...just make sure this kid understands that this car could let go at any moment...the Lincoln let go about a week after it had its post -26,000 mile oil change.

But you've got it all here - massive coolant, water and fuel in the oil, and it is somewhere around a 50-60 weight from it all. And the wear metals, well, nothing has escaped damage...as for suggestions, I wouldn't bother with Auto RX right now, too much for it to be effective...I'd just do 3-4 500-mile changes with a 15W-40 diesel oil to try and get some of the junk out....can you keep us informed as to how this engine does?
 
Well, he can't beat the price. Just flush it out with a few 500 mile changes of HDEO. Then do an Amsoil flush. Fill it with generic 10W-30 and do 2X AutoRx treatments. Continue with 3K oil changes....should be fine.

But then again, it has a coolant leak.
 
With the 'price' and mileage, just doing 2-3k changes of oil should keep it in check w/o having to do major repairs....
 
Coop,

What a hoot. Thanks for sharing. That coolant leak could merely be a very small leak that has gone on for a very long time. You can hope. Looks like the fuel injection Needs Work.

Wonder what the inside of the oil filter looked like. Let us know down the line how this works out.
 
Yes, I wonder how many times the oil was changed on the car.

.1 TBN...awesome

Too bad we dont' have the oil filter, I'd love to cut that bad boy open
 
Actually, if the oil really does have 237,000 miles on it and you normalize to 5,000 miles does it look so bad?

normalized to 5,000 miles:
ALUMINUM: 1
CHROMIUM: 0
IRON: 12
COPPER: 0
LEAD: 1
TIN: 0
NICKEL: 0
MANGANESE: 0
SILVER: 0
TITANIUM: 0
SILICON: 1

dunno.gif
 
I would ONLY change the oil and oil filter ... no teatments of any kind.

It was well said that even after he changes the oil for the FIRST time, the engine could go.
 
Quote:

I would ONLY change the oil and oil filter ... no teatments of any kind.

It was well said that even after he changes the oil for the FIRST time, the engine could go.

Click to expand...


This UOA sample was done at an oil change. I do believe that the oil may have been changed at some point, but I really don't know. It had a Fram filter on there, but it was an old one, without the gripper end, just an orange can that was almost black, even though I didn't see it, I asked, and I really don't know if Fram puts the gripper on that oil filter. I don't use Fram filters. I do know that it has Maxlife 5w30 in there now with a Wix filter. I know that the car runs, although it hasn't been driven but a couple of miles, because he is 15. Surprisingly, he says it is pretty well taken care of visually, no rust, and the interior is pretty clean. I wonder what the rest of the fluids look like????
dunno.gif
 
Oh yeah, I will try to talk him into taking the valve cover off and taking a picture, but I doubt he will. I am sure it is leaking from the valve cover gasket anyway, and needs replaced. My wife and I will be going down there at some point for vaca (it is 500 miles away) Maybe I will just buy a valve cover gasket and do it myself. We will see, but he is scared to work on cars besides the oil change. He will learn, I hope.
 
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