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I have found a car in Los Angeles, CA that I am interested in buying. Problem is, I'm 2800 miles away in Michigan. It's at a specialty dealer, not a private owner. I am hesitant to agree to a sale over the phone before I inspect and drive the car. How would you out there in BITOG land suggest I...

I spied this Camaro advertised in a parking lot on my commuting route last week. After a couple of days of passing it by I weakened and stopped to take a look. V6, 5-speed manual. New tires, brakes, and alternator. $2800. The next day I stopped in and test-drove it. Everything worked. Dammit...

Owned it since it was new. 21 Michigan winters on it. 200 track hours. Crashed once at MidOhio. Trans rebuilt because reverse got hard to find, and clutch replaced at 193k miles (clutch was P/M, still had half its lining.) 4 sets of rear axles due to outboard bearing failure. 8 sets of front...

Spring is on the way, and each year my fancy turns to road trips and track days. I've been out of the track day habit for six years, mostly because of lack of money. And my old track cars have become unsuitable: The Camaro, stout-hearted steed that it is, has been retired from track use because...

Despite my misgivings about the low KV100 of M1 High Mileage 10w40, it did OK on the same interval as M1 5w40 European Car Formula. Fuel dilution continues to trend down, even as I have continued to run E85 fuel blends. End of OCI viscosity has stayed safely in the 30 range, which was the major...

This UOA is getting close to what I'm looking for. Fuel dilution has decreased from 4.1% in 3900 miles to 3.3% in 6000 miles. The oil has lost about 20% of its virgin viscosity, but it is in the upper half of the 30 grade. Iron wear rate has slowed down from 1.8 ppm/1000 miles to 1.5 ppm/1000...

I finally got the OCI short enough to keep the fuel dilution below 5%, so I would have an idea about how much fuel is in there. The KV100 still fell out of 30 grade, but not by much. The ethanol blends that I have been experimenting with haven't caused the fuel dilution to go crazy. Wear metals...

Fuel dilution is still a major issue. I shortened the change interval to ~5000 miles, but the oil still fell out of grade. Running the injector cleaner early in the oil change interval apparently didn't help the fuel dilution. And starting to run E85 fuel mixtures in the last part probably...

Nothing really radical, but new to me. My Buick Verano T has the flex-fuel capable LHU engine, and I am looking for a way to beat the high cost of gasoline. The 2.0L turbo requires 91 octane minimum, so I have to run premium all the time. If I'm patient enough, I will run two transactions at the...

First oil analysis I've done on my recently purchased Buick Verano T. LHU 2.0L 4-cylinder turbo, direct injected. BIG problem with fuel dilution: More than 5% fuel dilution is huge. The viscosity has broken out of 30-weight and is in the low 20-weight range. Gotta do something. Put M1 High...

Gale tours the chem lab at AMSoil, where they run tests that we see on spec sheets all the time. So THAT'S what a miniature rotary viscometer looks like.

Seeing as how my daily drivers had 550,000 miles accumulated between them, I figured it would be nice to have a newer car. My '08 Dodge Ram in particular had become annoying after costing me $6000 in repairs last year. Since I stopped running trailers, it was no longer needed, and I decided to...

Just did an oil change on my Camaro, and had to take stock of where it is in its life-cycle. I have owned the car since new, and it always had synthetic oil in the sump. But after 240,000 miles, oil consumption has trended up, and now it is using a quart in about 1200 miles. This gets kind of...

Oil change interval running trailers with Kendall Super-D XA in the sump. Polaris comments: Flagged data does not indicate an immediate need for maintenance action. Continue to observe the trend and monitor equipment and fluid conditions. Chrome is at a MINOR LEVEL and is possibly coming from...

Rolling up the miles delivering trailers. Polaris Comments. Suggest checking compression and for engine breather passing oil (blow-by) or similar diagnostics and monitoring engine fault codes. Chrome is at a SIGNIFICANT LEVEL and is possibly coming from piston ring plating; Tin is at a MODERATE...

Was trying to do a 10,000 mile interval, but overshot by a week, so it's 13,000 miles. Transporting trailers in hot weather. Ran almost entire time with EGR valve unplugged in order to see the effect on oil oxidation. Polaris Comments: Flagged data does not indicate an immediate need for...

I have been having a problem over the last few months that if the truck sits for 2-3 days, the batteries will go dead. It doesn't happen every time that I let it sit for a couple of days, but it's happened a few times, about 2 times a month. And sometimes even if it has just sat overnight, it...

I am installing an oil temperature gauge in my 2008 Dodge Ram diesel and want to use the 1/8-NPT port on the top of the oil filter base. Has anyone used this port for this purpose before? Is there any issue with the sensor blocking off an oil passage? The sensor I bought can be trimmed for...

Still towing travel trailers. Some in mountainous terrain in warm weather. 11k miles on this oil fill. Added particle quantifier and truck hourmeter readings to the new UOA. Polaris comments: Flagged data does not indicate an immediate need for maintenance action. Continue to observe the trend...

I've been saying for a while that Kendall Super D-XA is an oil I want to try, but the only place I could find it was at Pilot truck stops, where it was overpriced. But for the last couple of weeks, I have been seeing it in various Pilots around the country at $13.99 per gallon. So I finally...