MaxLife Higher Mileage Motor Oil

Hello. My tacoma has 186K on her...don't smoke or use oil. Without getting into a debate of whether or not to use Seafoam in the crankcase, I'll simply make the statement "I am not going to use Seafoam in the crankcase" and that's that.
I have used the MaxLife Higher Mileage Motor Oil 10-30 since around 90K miles. I change my oil every 3K miles and all appears to me normal. I would, however like to use some sort of motor oil, for the next few oil changes, that would gradually remove sludge and deposits from within motor. (valve noises) It was recommended to use Pennzoil platinum or ultra, but is a full synthetic. I know that using a full synthetic at this stage of the motors life will not hurt anything (and only for less that 10K miles) but I didn't want to piss away money on something that would not remove any crud from within. Can anyone backup using the Pennzoil to perform the task I'm looking for? Thank you, DM

 

Use royal purple the next few oil changes. There are enough detergents in it that will gradually clean the crud. Get a good oil filter as well. Check out chris4x4's write up on oil filters on the forum. Seems toyota has the best. If you still have sticking valves, just pop the valve covers off and clean em' up yourself. It's not as hard as you think. Good luck

 

Ok, I'll look into royal purple (never heard of it until now) I'll do some googling. Thank you for the reply...DM

 

Hi,
I am the tech manager at FRAM filters. Castrol oil has very high detergent levels, you may want to try that. In any event, if you know your engine is sludged up and are trying to remove the sludge, make sure you use a high capacity oil filter like FRAM XG or others. Extended life filters are designed for synthetic oil and have up to 3x's the capacity to trap and hold dirt as a standard filter. Using a standard filter while suspending sludge will quickly fill a normal filter and cuase the filter bypass valve to open. Then you are just cycling very dirty oil through the engine.

 

Valvoline high mileage (any high mileage oil) has high detergent. the oem yota filters i ordered and just received are a high capacity filter. thx for your input.

 

So how do you know that the engine is sludged up? With 3K oil change intervals it should be fairly clean, and does it call for 10-30 0r 5-30?

IMHO 3K oil changes is a waste of money run it at least 5K.

 

either or, according to the book. i don't really guess it's sludged, as the more i've read. the stuff i've been using most likely has kept it clean. unsure if it's worth the $ to upgrade to synthetic, or not. thx