Had a lengthy with XXXXX. He is working on an older womans car. The woman had just had numerous seals changed in the car as well as gaskets. The Toyota dealership did not even inform here that the motor was totally sludged up.
The car is a 1999 Toyota Avalon with the infamous 3.0 liter V-6. This is the real sludge monster.
He says that he has already run Sea Foam, MMO, all with little to no results. We talked about the PCV valve or sometimes Toyota calls it a ccv valve. But it is a heavily sludged motor. So much so that he has to even add oil to the car slowly or the valve cover will fill right up to the funnel.
So the drain holes in the head are either severely restricted, or some of them are plugged. I told him that it would be nearly impossible to clean these out if they are totally plugged. I suggest that he may have to remove the valve covers and see if he cant poke holes in the drain holes, so as to create better circulation. Sometimes the holes are barely crusted over and once you poke through the rest of the casting is pretty clean.
In any event, he was going to try a "Fast Trac Cleaning"with either Rotella T or Castrol Syntec. He is going to replace the PCV valve and visit the car every 1500 miles. The car gets used every day and he has limited access to it.
So he knows we can't clean where oil is not free to flow. But he wants to give it a shot. Toyota wanted $2000 bucks just to scrape out what they could out of the valve trains.
