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If the car has been maintained regularly, I would stay away from oil flushes. Worst case scenario, you will knock a bunch of sludge free that will clog your oil pickup tube, and starve the engine of oil.
Your best bet is to use a good quality oil/filter, change the oil on time and forget about doing motor flushes. Don’t think there are any manufactures that recommend doing motor flushes due to the risk involved to the engine.
I use quaker state 10-30… and I add some lucas with that…
engine goes great, very smooth … anyways ill drop the flush for now…Thanks guys… 🙂
X’s 100 on everyones posts,,,,,,I think it must have been a service writer who thought engine flushes up,,I don’t know about anyone else,,but flushes,,are probably the MOST damaging thing you can do to your engine,,,,,,SKIP IT
Yea don’t do the flush, you could do more harm than good. All you should need to do is regular oil changes, nothing else is required.
they CAN work and you can get more miles out of an older motor in certain circumstances. those circumstances are still a mystery and it’s best to err on the side of caution 😀
That’s another subject I don’t know as much about, long-term storage. I hear engine fogging products work nice, but do an oil change before the trip and use the fogging oil for longer than 2 months, etc storage.
There’s probably plenty of tips on how-to relative to the restart once back home, I’m sure some things relative to fuel left in the tank, perhaps fuel stabilizing additives that actually do that.
PS: Dreamer, it had to be posted. lol
In a vehicle that ‘is’ maintained regularly and DOES NOT have actual ‘sludge’ but rather some depositing, etc…you can use an idle flush(no load applied to vehicle) for 15-20 min and then immediately drain. Try to drain for a while.
There are some I prefer, since I’ve researched this for a few years and the guys over at BITOG have used some. Amsoil’s, Lubegards…AFAIK do no contain any solvents so is a ‘safer’ type of flush for seals, but will still encourage deposits that are ready to come out that extra nudge to stay suspended in the oil just before changing it.
…I must have used 3 idle flushes on the Civic I own now over the past 3 years. I also have caught it up on maintenance and know it doesn’t have sludge. When I use the idle flush, I have gotten more deposits out with the oil drain. Not science and I can’t prove it, but it didn’t hurt. I do have some UOAs to show insol tracking up after use of such, which suggests it possibly helped get into suspension some of the deposits.
I’ve also used top-end piston head/combustion chamber cleaner products as ‘soaks’ since they don’t risk hydro-locking a cylinder, but might risk fouling an 02 sensor IF it was close to going. I don’t do the 10 minute soak, etc, I let it soak for 1-2 hours after ingesting in the middle of the summer, restart and take it for a spin to expel whatever the foam soak has managed to remove from whatever metal surface that got ‘deposited’ (high temp, hardened insoluble ‘insols’). A few WOT, come back, idle flush for 10-15 minutes and then let the oil drain for as long as you can take it. (some apps may lose oil pump prime if you drain for days, though, lol)
If you have ‘any’ hesitation, don’t use cleaners in your engine. If you ‘know’ the engine is ‘clean’ (basically no sludge of knowledge, remove a valve cover or both if applicable lol)…then it won’t hurt. A PEA containing fuel system cleaner is a detergent, non-solvent, cleanser that essentially gets into the engine and can help with deposits over time. Probably, that is the ‘safest’ way to address CC/top-end cleanliness and actual performance issues by using reputable products such as Red Line’s SI-1 fuel system cleaner or Techron in the bottle, etc. Again, just before an oil change(the last tank or two max with such a product prior to oil change/drain)
IMO, this is more of a ‘potential’ optimal choice for frequent extended OCI habits for peace of mind, but I’d be more concerned with the functioning of your PCV system (valve) before attacking a symptom (engine cleanliness) without eliminating the major contributing factors. Driving longer distances once a week or two, for a car/app that sees lots of short trips; for example, may help with engine cleanliness over the years on top of regular maintenance.
ADDED: If all of that stuff still freaks you out, consider using a HDEO for a couple of oil changes, NOT around emissions time to be safe there, but it does have more magnesium among other things that act as a better cleaner in smaller amounts compared to calcium. The idea is to have a different formulation shock the crud on the metal surfaces; shock treatment without the use of additives. Of course, if an app calls for 5w-20, I’d hesitate to use it without being sure of matters first. The HDEO oil route will work for cars that can use 5w-30 or 10w-40 more so, since they can cover those ranges in a technical sense, you will notice a drop in fuel economy. That’s the downside, sorta like going to a high mileage oil which is another point to consider if wanting to clean up. Magnesium seems to cleanse better without quite as good wear protection characteristics as calcium. All oils are a trade off, but finding a dual spec oil that rates API-SM is very doable. Rotella T5 or T6; for the US general population.
A customer parked his car for a couple mouths while he was working out of country. Returned and started driving again. It started making a grinding noise. Pulled the valve cover. Sludge everywhere. This was a nissan with a SR20 motor. The oil tubes which spray oil on the cam lobes were blocked off with sludge. The engine was screwed.
Poor guy. Should have paid close attention to his oil change interval. Should have change the oil before parking it for such a long time.
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