I bought my 1999 Corolla with 118xxx miles on it. It now has ~158xxx. I've noticed the car normally uses oil, but I attributed this to age and its "unknown" maintenance history. I've been careful to change the oil regularly. A few months ago, the car started experiencing a seal leak similar to my 1999 Sienna (see post) which has sludge. I pulled the oil pan and checked, sure enough it did have sludge, though not as bad as the Sienna, but the sludge probably is contributing to the seal leak. Carbon pieces were starting to clog the pickup screen, too. (See pictures of the crankcase area and cylinder head cams). I have Auto-Rx on order and am waiting on its delivery. I'll go through the recommended cleaning cycle. Hopefully, I can post after-treatment photos (at least of cams).
Piece of cake. Just do the normal 2500/3000 deal. Looks like a 2 treatment deal to me. Maybe 3 to make it look REAL normal. It took years to get that way with incidental oil migration. The marginal areas may take a bit to get effected since Auto-Rx needs enough contact time to use its mojo.
Geeaea, When I saw the baked-on carbon next to the timing chain and next to the cams, I was very careful to not touch anything. I cleaned as much of the carbon off of the valve cover (away from the cylinder head), but did not touch anything underneath the cover. I did not want any flakes to get into the valves. The car is sitting at a body shop waiting for repairs thanks to a white-tailed deer. But this idle time is convenient, because I'm still waiting on my Auto-Rx order to arrive before I can dose this engine.
This will be somewhat of a challenge for me because the car will be taken by my daughters after Christmas break down to college in MO. I'll have to have them keep me posted on the mileage, so I can make a trip down there and change the oil filter and top it off after 1250 miles.
I plan to pull the valve cover after the first cleaning and rinsing stage...just out of curiosity.
Good advice, TurboJim. It seems that after about 40 years of the use of PCV, they've managed to make more trouble prone and responsible for consumption and other issues.
Ah- the college beater. I gave my daughter a 91 Taurus that I bought for $300. It needed CV joints. It used oil by the hour of operation. No running problems otherwise. Plugs fine ..etc..etc. It didn't matter if it was 4-5 hours of short trip or the 200 mile one way trip back from college, it used nearly a quart of oil. I threw in a bottle of Auto-Rx and it reduced it to months in her short trip usage. Enough of a reduction that 6 month oil changes became routine with ..perhaps ... a quart of consumption between changes. I never bothered with the second treatment until about a month ago. Still running strong with about 50k more miles on it (now at 180k+). I decided to do the trans too at this time. The PO had needed a rebuild with new hard parts about 18 months before I bought it from him. He was the kind of owner that bought used in the 4-6 year old range and kept them until the repairs became too much of an inconvenience. Not a bad policy for an ongoing "transportation management plan" ..but he disposed of a car that had tons of utility in it for chump change. Now it's not without its shortcomings. It's needed a water pump and the air conditioning quit..the usual stuff ...but it will rust apart before it will stop providing reliable transportation, though. I think I have about $1000 into it. While at college, some lady ran into her and mangled the plastic fascia on the rear bumper. Her insurance company wrote me a check for $950. I applied two sheet metal screws to hold the torn plastic to the body.
My 99 Corolla is still in the shop waiting for deer damage repairs. I'll dose it with Auto-Rx as soon as it is fixed.
My daughters had been driving a 91 Corolla (my old beater). I left on a business trip and got a call that the car had broken down on the highway. Very rare for a Corolla. But, that model engine doesn't have a baffle plate over the oil fill hole, located above the cams. After topping the oil off before I left for a business trip, I forgot to put the cap back on the oil fill hole. The engine literally pumped itself out of oil while driving. Although the oil light came on, since my daughter was on the highway she didn't pull over until she got to an exit...by then the #3 crankshaft journal was toast. I found a used engine with 110k miles and swapped it out this summer. Unfortunately, my wife didn't trust the car so the girls took over my 99 Corolla and I got the beater back. That is okay, though. I'll keep it going. Once I finish with the Sienna and the 99 Corolla, the 91 Corolla will be the third car for my Auto-Rx experiments.
Thanks for the post. If this beater had been treated with Auto-Rx and than gone to the Auto-Rx maintenace plan Odds are the mechanical damage you now have would not have happened cap off now withstanding. Auto-Rx would have provided (lubricity without oil) long enough to get to service station .
