On my 2nd Maintenance Dose I added Amsoil 100% 10W-30 Synthetic Oil since I had bought a case before starting Auto-Rx, I have had to continually add some oil and from what I have gathered on BITOG and other research on the Internet engines that are as old as mine do not like the Group IV oil's, something with the older seals, I have a little bit of wetness on the back of the oil pan, funny thing is that throughout my Clean and Rinses with dino oil there was no wetness or loss of oil, and strangely to the engine seemed to run better on Group III oil, so tomorrow I will be picking up some Pennzoil Platinum which is a Group III oil, this my fault and not Auto-Rx, you just live and learn, seems the Group IV Oil's are better for newer engines. I also added a 195 Thermostat versus the 180 Thermostat and my oil temps are at 225 degrees whereas with the 180 stat it was at about 200, I think this may explain some of my oil filter issues as a lot of junk may not have been burned off in the engine and it just went straight to my oil filter, 1000 miles on this filter and 195 stat the oil filter temp is at 215 whereas before it was at 190, so I live and learn again, I am not perfect and this mishap is my mistake and when things go a little wrong we cannot blame Auto-Rx, with the higher thermostat I am not getting any oil vapor on my valve cover by the PCV meaning stuff is getting burned off, I am just wondering if I should continue on the Maintenance Dose or do another Clean and Rinse with dino oil, maybe this 195 stat for 1000 miles has burned everything off, I had that 180 stat in for my Clean and Rinses and my 1st Maintenance Dose, so let me know continue Maintenance Dose or do another Clean and Rinse to keep on track. I will wait to here from everyone including Frank and Daryl, thanks everyone, Brent.
Yes, I have and it looks great, it even looked great before Auto-Rx, I believe all of the junk was in the ring packs and oil lines because when I had a new oil pump put on before Auto-Rx it took a long time for the engine to build up pressure.
Brent synthetic oil needs to be cleaned out of this engine. I would do 1 application of Auto-Rx extend the cleaning mileage to 3000 miles . On to rinse miles extend that to 3500 miles. (change the filters half way throug both cleaning and rinsing cycles) regarding oil use a GROUP111 for application and your daily driver oil than go on maintenance plan.
I was kind of thinking the same thing, since the oil will only be in there for a short time I will pick up some cheap dino oil and 4 oil filters and when both the Clean and Rinse Phases are done I will stick with Group III oil.
I went and changed the oil tonite, it was in there for 3000 miles, of course I changed the oil filter's twice before this time, the oil was a little dark and the filter did not have any oil stuck in the media, put in the dino oil with a bottle of Auto-Rx. I then changed the oil on my Mom's car and added a bottle of Auto-Rx because of a seal leak, of course I used dino oil in that too. I will take my car out tommorow as I have the day off and go and dump the used oil, I will let everyone know how things are going.
I took the car out and the engine is running better, these are my thoughts and not an expert's opinion, from what I have learned Group IV oil has an additive that keeps the oil on the metal so Auto-Rx has a hard time cleaning, also for older engines Group IV does not work well with the seals, in 3000 miles of driving I went through maybe about 2-3 quarts of oil, the engine did not seem to run as well in my opinion, also with the dino oil the oil temp is about 5 degrees higher, this might not mean much because I have a bottle of Auto-Rx in there, I also noticed again when pouring the oil in that I could here it hitting metal as it was going into the crankcase. Up until now I was always the biggest fan of the latest grade of synthetic oil, now my opinion has changed and I think a Group III oil with Auto-Rx is the best for my engine. I am not sure if I will go back to Pennzoil Platinum or Amsoil XL which are Group III oil's, they are basically regular oil's hydrocracked to be a synthetic. I do not need an oil that is going to leak and I end up having to add a little every week or so, my plan is too do a Clean and Rinse and then consult with everyone about going on the Maintenance Dose right afterwards because I want to make sure there are no leaks returning. My other thought to everyone is to not put in a cooler temperature thermostat in your vehicle, my thinking is that if the vehicle does not get up to a certain temperature you may have a hard time burning off combustion byproducts, again I think some of my oil filter issues were with the engine not getting hot enough and sending junk to the oil filter when in reality if it were hot enough a lot of this stuff would have been burned off. If you have to use a synthetic I would strongly urge everyone to use a Group III synthetic. I looked up the flash and pour points on Group IV versus Group III synthetic, the flash points were about the same and the pour points were only off about maybe 15 degrees, meaning Group III synthetic's pour point is -40 degrees and Group IV synthetic's pour point was -58 degrees. I hope this information helps.
I am 400 miles into the Clean Phase on the dino oil and there is absolutely no wetness of oil down by the oil pan and no loss of oil. It is Group III from now on for me.
I am 800 miles into this Clean Phase and I had to change the oil filter tonite, Frank had said to change it halfway through at 1500 miles, didn't quite make it, but what was interesting was that the oil that came out of the filter was not dirty, I will cut open the filter tomoorow night and see how it looks inside, I could tell that there was oil trapped in the pleats by shaking the filter. It is obvious that there is still some cleaning going on, I have the highest temperature thermostat in there which is a 195 so I know the engine is getting as hot as it can and that I am not creating any more junk since I am not running a lower temp thermostat. It will be interesting to see how long I can go on this oil filter.
