Originally Posted by addyguy
Wear metals have jumped up a lot, especially lead and aluminum. Lots of short trips in cold weather I would say is to blame.
Yes, that's part of it. Here are the culprits, IMO:
1. The car is no longer garaged, so cold starts during winter are much colder than what they used to be. Plus, the amount of short tripping (6 miles) has gone up.
2. I was experiencing rough idle (as if some cylinders were not firing) on cold startup plus some heavy smoke out of tailpipe on occasions. The shop couldn't replicate the smoke, but stated that my CCV may have been plugged up. CCV on this engine is a weak spot, so I told them to go ahead and replace it.
3. I ran a bottle of Berryman Chemtool through the tank just before taking this sample. From my experience, often times running such fuel system cleaner will manifest itself as increased wear metals on a UOA.
The main reason for doing this UOA was to test for coolant presence as I was not sure if I had a potential head gasket issue on my hands.