Unknown oil/ unknown mileage 1996 Saturn sl2

[dnewton3]

Let's see if I understand this correctly: A car with nearly 240,000 miles, little to NO maintenance on the engine, or presumably anything else with liquid in/on it for that matter, right? Is it fair to think that the main filter might be in bypass at this point with the solubles the size of marbles?

If this car can go this far with no maintenance, my vehicles should last FOREVER! Perhaps this is the final debunk of the 3,000 mile oil change myth!

 

[Pablo]

Quote:

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Let's see if I understand this correctly: A car with nearly 240,000 miles, little to NO maintenance on the engine, or presumably anything else with liquid in/on it for that matter, right? Is it fair to think that the main filter might be in bypass at this point with the solubles the size of marbles?

If this car can go this far with no maintenance, my vehicles should last FOREVER! Perhaps this is the final debunk of the 3,000 mile oil change myth!

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People still will get weak in the knees when you mention 6K with a good oil.

 

[dnewton3]

Apparently, the previous owner thought maintenance was wasteful? On a 3k OCI, that would be around 80 oil changes with filter. As cheap as you can buy oil/filters (in the past anyway) we could say an average of $10 per change. That's like $800 they saved. Hmmmmmmmm ...

I still think I'll change mine every 5k - 7.5k and risk the "wasted" money. Or maybe I'll go beserk, buy premium synthetic, run a bypass, and only change oil every 25,000 or so.

 

[oilyriser]

But the #50 viscosity must have eaten into gas mileage maybe 4%, so the last 200,000 miles used maybe 350 more gallons of gas. But all the time saved not changing oil adds up too.
So you top up with 0w-10 oil, it thickens to #30, and evertying is fine?

 

[jmac]

The question will not be if this engine has sludge, it will be how much. Perhaps a quick compression test and start saving for a new engine is in order. Compression test just to estimate how long before this engine is done. Heck with any multiweights, just replace with straight HD 30 and add as needed! LOL
It will be interesting what the oil usage actually is, maybe a little poll on betting what it is? I'll say 1qt every 500 mi. Have to specify the visc. though. That 5-30 I bet gets consumed faster.

 

[beanoil]

Awesome that he is getting a car to start with. This will hopefully teach him the value of maintaining an expensive piece of property right out of the gate. ARX is what you will probably be recommended a dozen times throughout this thread. I'll recommend Neutra and an HDEO for 700 miles with a cheap filter. Then HDEO for the rest of the cars life. Frankly, it's probably a sludge bucket, but I don't think it will just go at any given moment. It's life will probably be shortened more by a new, young driver hot rodding it than it's abuse before he got it. Local here, and in probably any town with a dollar store, there are millions of cars being fed with SA oil and no changes, only top offs. They still run. They ain't right, but they run. I personally know of one Saturn, 248,000 miles. The young lady was checking her oil one night in the parking lot where she works. I was curious ( I know her) so approached and asked what was up. She was a quart low, and grabbed a quart of SA from the trunk. Conversation was short, it was what she ran and could afford, and had been that way for the last 100k, with no changes, only adds. Next time I came to where she works, I left a 6pack of Hav HM 10-30 for her. I figure that's my good deed for that day, and maybe the best 2.00 I ever spent.

 

[Gary Allan]

Hmmm...my first thought is to send him 3 bottles of Auto-Rx and a case of cheap filters ..have him change the filters every 100-150 miles. By the last filter/bottle ..he should no longer saturate the filter with goo.

..OTOH, what evil exists behind the monster of the black lagoon

 

[Camu Mahubah]

Good call on the Maxlife, but I'd run whatever I could get on sale. Get on the internet and start looking for a good used cheap engine. This young buck may get an education in shade tree mechanicry, or maybe if it looks so good take it to a shady used car lot, no don't do that cause some poor fool will end up with it. DRIVE IT until it BLOWS. Or sell it to an inlaw cheap!

 

[Cooper]

Okay, so this car has been driven about 1000 miles since I last posted about it. The oil level is still in the middle of the L....F marks on the dipstick. The oil is now black. It is Maxlife 5w30. So, it doesn't sound like the car is burning too much oil. I know it still blows a little white smoke when it is warming up though. This is all I know for now.

 

[addyguy]

I'd go about another 500 miles on that oil, and then change it again, go 1500 on that oil, and then see if the oil stays reasonably clean for a 3-4k mile OCI - he may be lucky, and the engine may hold together for a while.

 

[Merkurwwu]

I'm glad to hear this is working out better than I thought it was going to. I was going to say "this thing is shot." I've been through a few Saturns, all of them were bought used, but after I purchased them, all of them were maintained regularly with Castrol GTX. Every single last one of them burned oil, and the DOHC engines were the worst offenders. When I sold the last one it was buring a quart every 400 miles (at 220k miles), it always smoked when accelerating when the oil consumption started. I changed the valve seals in all of them hoping it would help but it never did. When i was in my early 20's and driving these beaters, I never thought that changing to a synthetic oil or doing an engine flush would help.

These suckers are notorious for the ring lans on the pistons being too tight to the rings. As carbon builds up, the rings stick on the pistons and your oil control goes away. I think you're lucky if all the info you've given is true, but I wouldn't be surprised if things go awry with that many miles. Do you know for sure if this is the original engine? If it really was abused that badly, these early Saturn engines just WILL NOT stand up to it. If you look around you don't see a whole heck of alot of these and the first generation SL's running around, oil consumption is why- otherwise they're solid little cars...!

 

[Merkurwwu]

I forgot to add. Whenever the S.O. and were on the road in the Saturns and could smell oil burning the first question is;

"Is there a Saturn in front of us?"

If the answer is no, the next question is;

"Is it us?"

 

[Merkurwwu]

Shoot!

I also forgot to add to look at www.saturnfans.com. All info about the engines is right there.

 

[Cooper]

Okay, my last post was a little off. It has burned some oil, and the oil level is where I said it was. But, they added 1 qt. of 5w30 whatever at a gas station to the existing Maxlife. Not what I would have done, as I would have added 1 qt. of Maxlife to the Maxlife, but, it is not my car, I am just posting what I am told. So, the car is burning oil, and is smoking. But, I don't think this is too bad, because, the car is still running. As for the original engine, yes it is. It has only had maintanence when something broke, and it had to be done. I recommended that they change the oil now, and they said they may do it this weekend because of how black the oil is now. I told them that it was dark because the oil was holding all the ____ in suspension, and it needed to come out and that it will probably happen for the next few OCI's if they choose to do them at approx. 1k OCI.

 

[Jaymus]

Wow, talk about an extended OCI...

Quote:

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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

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That is interesting to think about.

 

[Cutehumor]

it probably burned so much oil from the beginning. they said forget oil changes and just top off every 500 miles.

 

[d00df00d]

Quote:

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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

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Yes, but:

1. We don't know if the previous owners owned it since new.

2. We're probably only seeing a fraction of what's actually in the engine. I'd be willing to bet that most of the contaminants are in solid form, stuck in the old filter or still sitting in the sludge...

 

[unDummy]

Start with 3k OCIs with a high mileage oil. Check oil and top off as needed at every fuel fill up. Change oil/filter at ANY sign of noise even if the 3k wasn't met. I expect fresh oil to clog the filter quickly. Listen for differences in sound during engine startup, hot & cold idle, and when under a load. The 1st few thousand miles might require several oil changes.

Change all the fluids, change all the filters, and get a tuneup.

Insolubles tells the story. Filter quit working a long time ago. And, with insolubles that high, even without a filter, oil probably has 100k or more miles on it.

Depending on oil top off amount, TBN looks horrible. You would think that a few extra quarts every 5k-10k would be enough.

Oil is a 50wt, with high fuel dilution, and 30wt being required, makes you wonder.

This engine survived because of 'driving style'. Bet Gramma didn't rev the ____ out of it. Plus, 1.9L doesn't make much HP.

New o2 sensor, plugs, wires,.....fuel/air filters, coolant flush & thermostat.... should take care of the fuel dilution. A couple bottles of FI cleaners will get the injectors spraying pretty.

Lots of water which is most likely from short trips. High moisture will sludge up the oil.

I wouldn't bother wasting ANY money on flush chemicals, oil cleaners, or oil additives. An inspection of the pan and under the valve cover is a must. Pictures would be great to look at.

UOA the transmission and the PSF too.

 

[rustlerdude]

OMG...this engine must have no pick up screen! Engines with a fraction of that OCI have clogged p/up screens. Send that report to GM...what a bulletproof engine.

 

[nascarnation]

GC fixed the oil burning in my S-Sat (130,000 miles)
or at least made it way better - from 800 mpq to 3000
they run good on Rotella 5W40 too