Auto-Rx Customers Questions & Answers

I have spent a bunch of time watching the saga unfold, over at BITOG, with Artems Toyota V6, 1MZ-FE6, motor as it relates to varnish deposits. First I have got to give the man credit for all of his efforts.  But I must say that Artem should be happy with the overall cleanliness of this motor given the 230,000 miles or so. I think we would be hard pressed to find a cleaner 1MZ-FE6 motor in operation today, even with less mileage on one.

Artems goal is to run this motor to 300,000 miles. And I would say that all the pictures to date would indicate that this motor has a very good chance of doing just that.  But he is hell bent on cleaning this valve train back to what it cosmetically looked like when the car rolled off the assembly floor.  I really dont know if this is feasible, or necessary.  This motor is not going to fail before 300,000 miles based on oil circulation issues, unless the oil pump fails. It would be more likely for a metal fatigue issue somewhere in the motor.

Although I must say that I think he is onto a good idea now. Our thoughts are that he should go back to the oil type that first created this varnish/staining issue.  He states that the first observation of this varnish/staining issue was many years ago when running M1.  And my thinking is that this soft residue might be soluabilized back into M1.  But M1 is likely been refined and reformulated several times since the deposits were originally formed.  So the new M1 0w40 that he is running now, is likely different than the M1 that was run several years ago.  So it is not a perfect situation.

Auto-Rx had suggested that he run the Auto-Rx Plus with Mobil 1 to see if there was something unique in the oil that would help disperse this varnish back into suspension.  This valve train residue is soft and would seem to be ripe for the pickings if perhaps oil with the right coupling esters were present.  But I am not sure whether or not present day M1 and old version are the same, other than the name.

The Auto-Rx test was run for only 1400 miles.  From what I can recall it was run with Pennzoil Platinum, a very good group III mineral product.  However, perhaps this residue does not have an affinity to mineral oil; after all it was supposed to have been created in the full synthetic presence. I want to make clear that this is not a bad reflection on M1 of the past. After all this is likely one of the cleanest  1MZ-FE6 motors around.

I think that if Artem were to run a full synthetic motor oil with the maintenance dose of ARX from now to  300K on the clock the motor would be noticeably cleaner, certainly at least as clean.  Bear in mind that many areas of the motor that he points out do not get a flow of oil, at best perhaps some mist, which is where varnish is likely to reform anyways.  So I think he is on the right track running a full synthetic, this motor design has been problematic with sludge issues, running extended drains on dino oil in particular. But as long as the suspension and brake parts are as good as the motor appears, he should have no problem reaching 300K on the clock.

It appears that the very best cleaning oil Pennzoil Ultra did very little on these deposits. In all fairness these deposits have been in place for 100,000 miles or so, which makes them more difficult.  We had suggested a double dose fast track application with M1 to define what ARX could do on these deposits.

This would have been the best shot at dispersing these deposits to oil chemistry with the ability to accept. I guess we will never know in Rates Camry. But again engine cleanliness is not an issue in this motor. And when you get right down to it, wouldnt add any value to a car with 230K on the clock

Great post Rich.