SteveBones
New Member
Howdy all, first post. Just bought a VZ Executive with 125000k, nice and clean, but badly serviced by woman driver. Runs beautifully (driven it for about 300k now), no smoke, no missing or noise, but there is sludge in engine. I have attached a pic of the filler tube showing the sludge, which I scraped off easily with my fingernail so its not varnished on (the attachment shows where I scraped off some of the gunk). Spoke to mechanic who did service last a few weeks ago (pre-sale service) he said it wasn't affecting the engine but not to flush, rather increase frequency of oil changes to every 5000km which would slowly remove the muck. I have read that a good dinosaur oil like Castrol GTX or Valvoline (not synthetics) has high detergent and will gradually eat away the sludge.
Can anyone comment on this for me? I am more than happy to do oil changes every 5000k with new filter, but will this be sufficient? Or should I add a little bit of additive (detergent) to each oil change? I know my way around cars generally (can change timing belts, replace valve cover gaskets etc) but don't know much about sludge. The mechanic said if I flush it, it may clog the "strainers".
Any suggestions or advice?
Can anyone comment on this for me? I am more than happy to do oil changes every 5000k with new filter, but will this be sufficient? Or should I add a little bit of additive (detergent) to each oil change? I know my way around cars generally (can change timing belts, replace valve cover gaskets etc) but don't know much about sludge. The mechanic said if I flush it, it may clog the "strainers".
Any suggestions or advice?