It seems I've gotten my neighbor interested in A-Rx. He has a 1994 Honda Passport 4wd v6 with around 160k miles on it. It is not used for long trips. He has an oil leak around the plugs somewhere, and also what sounds like a loud lifter tap. Someone told him it was a "collapsed lifter". He also has an interesting issue where the longer it goes from an oil change, the lower his oil pressure gets. He actually changes his oil based on the oil pressure?
Does anyone know if the 3.2l engines were prone to sludge issues? My guess is, after 160k miles, any engine could use a cleanup. Can I safely dump A-Rx in and have him drive it like he normally would? He's not really maintenance minded other than regular oil changes, so getting into the "filter halfway through" and all that probably isn't his cup of tea. However, I'm sure he'd like to have his engine running better.
The only thing I'm worried about is something happening to his engine while he's running A-Rx that would cause failure, and me getting blamed for it. It's not my vehicle, and I don't know the guy real well, but he was very interested in A-Rx when I told him about it this afternoon.
I suppose that filter changes should be considered mandatory on high-milage engine? Seems that plugging the filter to the point of bypass would not be a good thing. But like I said, I don't know that he'd go for "extra work". Maybe if I opted to do it for him...
Point him to www.auto-rx.com and let him make his own decision, you can bet that if you get involved in this project and he has problem best case scenario you lost a friend, worse case your getting sued and you lost a friend,
Keeping up with routine maintenance is always a good idea. I would try and determine where the oil leaks around the spark plugs are coming from. Might just need new valve cover gaskets. Change out the PCV valve it if doesn't look like it's been done in awhile. Does the engine burn any oil?
I think that using ARX in this engine would be a good investment but the owner has to buy into the program to get the most out of it.
What would happen if the owner were to start using the "maintenance dose" everytime he did an oil change instead of the whole 12oz bottle. I know it would take a long time but wouldnt that better than nothing and less risky?
In my opinion the only time you can start the Maintenance Dose is if your car is new or has less than 25,000 miles, before I did Auto-Rx I read all of the posts on BITOG and never read a bad experience. This person can either do Auto-Rx or look into getting a new vehicle or perhaps some expensive engine work down the line.
Sounds to me that his driving habits(short trips) over 160K's worth would make this unit a likely candidate for contamination build up. Likely every time he changes oil, the new oil gets exhausted pretty quickly. The detergent/dispersancy gets exhausted quickly by left over contamination.
At this point perhaps he should consider running the sludge application, changing the filter out at the half way point of the 2500 mile run of the cleaning phase. If you really want to error on the side of caution, just run an initial 1500 mile clean phase, followed by a 2000 mile rinse.
How long does he currently run before the oil pressure drops?
Your neighbors 94 Isuzu Rodeo V6 does not have an engine that is particularly sludge prone ,, however at 160K I'd definately run ARX through it ... The oil filter should be easy to get at on an extended pad at the front of the motor unless a "skid plate" is in the way. I would make sure the PCV valve is changed as those do crud up pretty badly. This is a complicated 4V per cylinder engine and the timing belt is my main concern.. cleaning valvetrain gum , varnish and other crud will reduce the strain on the timing belt and extend it's life. On many Isuzu's the change interval on this belt is 100K not the usual 60K miles. If your neighbor needs to do that service make sure to change the water pump and belt tensioner at the same time (water pump is driven by the smooth side of the belt and if you ever do have a water pump fail it will cause the cam belt to skip teeth or worse).
