pktaske

While changing the oil on my 'new' 2001 RX, I found the hard crusty build up on the flange more than a bit disconcerting. It also didn't help that each quart of oil took an inordinate amount of time to flow into engine. I've never experienced either in all my 20+ years of working on cars. It ALWAYS looked clean on well-maintained cars.

When I started researching about sludge (which I knew was an issue with these engines) I about s*** when I read its not really sludge as we imagine it to be but hard, crusted glop...like what's right under my oil cap! YIKES! All i could imagine was this crap in my engine built up so bad that it was even clogging the area that let the oil flow through the fill port! When the heck had I ever seen oil overflow out of the top of my valve cover when adding a quart before??

Thank goodness I came across this post:

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/5304093-post13.html

I'm still going to pull off my valve cover this weekend to check things out. Will post pics.

Vehicles history shows previous owners were pretty religious in servicing the car at the dealer through the first 10 years of its life.

thomas1

Please note that When I switch to the German Castrol oil full synthetic (European formula) the crust went away in my 1999 RX300....That oil is amazing.....

pktaske

Where can I find this in the US?

I also added some Auto RX too.


Ps-which of those kids is going to inherit the RX?

hypervish

I just use an extremely long funnel that fits into the engine hitting the baffle. Load the funnel up with a few quarts, and the slowly lift the funnel enough to regulate the oil coming out and make sure it doesn't flow out.