Odd Redline Leak Coincidence

[BrianWC]

I dare not contribute to any urban legends about synths and leaks but....

Last night, while toodling around under the hood (trying to quit smoking and had to do something) I noticed a decent leak on the timing cover side of my engine. Now, 9-5s are notorious for timing cover leaks but I have been lucky. The only time I have seen oil leak from that area in the past was when I ran a run of redline 5W30. That was back in the spring. Well, what's funny is I currently have half a bottle of redline 5W30 mixed in with my current fill of M1 (2 qts 5W30/2 qts 15W50). It's odd the way the leak just came back outta the blue. It should be known that I ran an oci of 15W40 dino (Castrol Tection Extra) after my last run of Redline.....

I suspect crankcase pressure must be the ultimate culprit as with SAAB's latest PCV update, the instructions to the SAAB techs are not to attempt timing cover seal replacement until the new kit is installed. But I just thought it quite odd that the only two times this has happened, Redline has been in the sump in some capacity....

 

[abimanyu]

Interesting, the same thing happened to my 1998 MB C230. It leaked aroud the valve cover gasket, especially around the oil refill hole. Been using Redline for 4 years. It leaked but I never had to top off the oil,strange. Maybe incompatibility of Redline to European cars?

 

[JAG]

I've said many times that Redline oils (motor and gear oil) caused problems in the 02' Subaru Impreza RS I had. The motor burnt about 0.75 qts/1k miles with Redline 10w30 and only half that on every other oil (synthetic and dino). I ran several 5k mi. intervals on Redline so it was more than a temporary effect. The Redline gear oil leaked out of both transaxles at an alarming rate. It kept dripping onto the headers and the stink alerted me to the problem. I then changed gear oil to Valvoline synthetic gear oil and leaks stopped immediately.

 

[BrianWC]

Yeah, same thing with me. Not enough is leaking to show up on the dipstick, although I overfill a bit. But no more than I usually do. I've run arx before (before the first leak) but I had a leaky sender at the time so I don't know if it affected things the same way or not. So, I wonder, should I go back to an hdeo dino or group III for one oci to recondition the seal or is that the opposite direction and maybe I should use some of my maxlife synth stockpile?

 

[JAG]

Tough call. If the leak is making a mess, I'd be inclined to dump the oil. If not, let it run its course to get your money's worth.

 

[BrianWC]

Well, I have about 4,800 on the oil right now. I usually don't go over 5k in this car anyway, it has such issues with oil. My pure redline fill I did I went 5500 miles. I had been thinking of dropping down to a 30 weight (like PP 5W30) and doing an arx maint. dose.

 

[JohnBrowning]

BrianWC this car has such a shacky past in terms of sludge/gelling I think it would be hard to determine if the seal was affected more by the Redline or all of the build up that was in the engine at one point. Then you have all of the various products you have tried to clean the sludge out as well. Now if the seal was already damaged from the build up of sludge onit's surface any number of things could have affected it. We do already know that if a seal is not in prisitine condition that any synthetic it seems will leak out where a GI or GII oil would either weep or not leak at all.Ester based fluids seem to magnify this in many cases. I do not thinkit was the esters because if anything they would cause the seal to swell not shrink but they flow more easily then other fluids so they leak out much easier. It is a lot like testing a radiator with fuel instead of water. A weld/brazeing that will not leak water will leak fuel every time. A lot of rad shops that work on expensive diesel engines will always brag that they test with fuel.

 

[BrianWC]

I agree. But I'd point out that I've used all sorts of synth in the meantime (PP, M1, Syntec 5W50). Like I said, I don't want to add to the "synths cause leaks" myth. Just thought it was an odd coincidence.