Thanks Jeff Sorry for the long delay.
Ive read some stuff about dirty oil being the problem, Im good about my oil changes and ive even thrown some seafoam in a few hundred miles before the last one to see if it could clean anything out. Didnt work. Id love to be able to tackle this myself if possible..
I had a lot of problems with sludge build-up on several different cars, even after changing the oil faithfully with full synthetic over the years. I tried Seafoam and it did nothing, along with others like Gumout Multi-Tune and several professional Valvoline flushes at a quck lube. Finally, after a lot of research, I started using one quart Marvel Mystery Oil in the crankcase in several different cars.
I had great results. An '08 MB E350 with only 28k miles was making a loud, deep thumping sound upon starting it when warm & standing for an hour (probably sticking valves hitting pistons). The noise completely disappeared after 3,000 miles of usage. It also cured a bad oil leak in a rear camshaft seal and poor acceleration/hard shifting.
Turns out, even new, synthetic oil sludges quickly during local driving, especially in cold weather and when you drive the car in short little trips under 15 minutes. The water vapor and relatively rich fuel mixture during warm-up operation add excessive soot to the oil through blow-by gases, which quickly precipitates into sludge (see
this page for a detailed explanation). Changing the oil alone only removes a little light sludge.
Just before each oil change, I idle the engine with one quart of
Motor Medic Synthetic Flush. I've read of other people on Amazon restoring smoking, "blown" engines with this combination of Marvel Mystery Oil and Motor Medic Synthetic Flush.
If you've never flushed, change the oil twice at quick, 500-mile intervals before using the MMO. Once you begin to use the MMO, change the oil & filter after only 400 miles (or immediately if you see your oil light flicker for a second). Continue using MMO and change the oil after 1,000 miles. Repeat and change oil at 1,500 miles. After that, change oil at 2,000 miles. If at any point your dashboard oil light comes on, stop the engine, wait a few minutes, and it will disappear; just change the oil as soon as possible.
Here are some other results I've obtained by using MMO in the crankcase:
'00 Mercedes ML320 - stopped consuming oil after 1k miles.
'99 Mercedes C230 - uneven idle disappeared after 500 miles.
'94 Ford Taurus - flickering oil light disappeared after 400 miles; gas mileage improved from 8 MPG to 17 MPG locally after 3k miles; weeping oil around the PCV grommet disappeared.
For all of those TCCA readers who disagree strongly with the idea of a "tune up in a can," I've already heard your protests loudly. I am simply offering my experiences for other users to try
at their own risk.
