So I purchased a 1997 ES300 about a year ago with 43k miles and I have put 15k miles on it (Sitting around 60k miles now). No engine trouble, nothing has gone wrong with it during my whole time of ownership and everything seems smooth.

When I went to do an oil change there was some crap inside the oil cap (ie. hard crusty carbon type buildup). Is this an indicator as to sludge?

Again no problems, starts fine, sounds good, etc. Seems okay but I was just a little concerned with the crap under the oil cap. I can put a rag in there and wipe some of it out but I have never seen this before.

 

hard to say until you open up the block and see the internals.. all we can do at this point is change oil on time and pray. you've got pretty low miles on your engine so its very unlikely as long as the previous owner changed oil on time.

i've seen oil cap of the '95 es with 160kmiles, pretty scary, nice dark brown build up on the cap, but the engine runs fine. go figure...

here is some good reading on engine sludge: http://www.preludezone.com/showthrea...ight=synthetic

 

I observed the same thing: 189,000 miles on my '98, my oil cap was nasty as well. But I've been doing the oil changes on her for about 5 years now and it was ALWAYS clean coming out.

Last month, I opened her up for a valve cover gasket change and the cams were nice and clean as well. I did notice a bit of sediment build-up on some of the oil passages, but I think some aggressive driving on the freeway usually can take care of that.

Plus, I put about half-can of Seafoam in crankcase about once a year - drive her aggressively on every on-ramp for about two tanks-worth of gas, then oil change.

 

I always flush my engine every time I change oil.

 

flush or drain?
i've read that flushing engine which already has sludge in it may actually make things worse.

 

no sludge in my 03 at 74k

the only way to truely find if your car is sludged is to pop off the front bank valve cover...if your motor is sludged, take it to lexus as it should be covered under the sludge campaign and you can get your motor cleaned and rebuilt on lexus's dime.

 

I buy a qt. of engine flush and add it to the oil with the engine at temp, and idle for 5-10 minutes, then drain. It dissolves the clumps into thin liquid that will drain out of the engine better. I have never had an issue. BUT - if anything happens, I am not responsible! Plus, my engine was already rebuilt by Lexus because of the sludge issue 30k miles ago.

 

Most mechanics would agree, this is sound advice. If the engine is sludged over to the point that a flush is going to do more damage than good, how would you determine that? If you were to flush a engine, and then had a engine failure next week, what criteria would a person use to determine that the engine would not have failed that week even if you had not flushed the engine?

You are obviously concerned about this. May I suggest pulling the front valve cover,and getting a better idea how much sludge is in there. If it is bad enough and do not mind spending some more time (and a few dollars). You could drop the oil pan, remove the valve covers, and then dig the sludge out by hand. Then re-assemble and run a can of flush (to help clean out the oil galleries.

 

"
I observed the same thing: 189,000 miles on my '98, my oil cap was nasty as well. But I've been doing the oil changes on her for about 5 years now and it was ALWAYS clean coming out.

Last month, I opened her up for a valve cover gasket change and the cams were nice and clean as well. I did notice a bit of sediment build-up on some of the oil passages, but I think some aggressive driving on the freeway usually can take care of that.

Plus, I put about half-can of Seafoam in crankcase about once a year - drive her aggressively on every on-ramp for about two tanks-worth of gas, then oil change."


you're a fool! you shouldn't run the engine hard with seafoam in it. you should use the seafoam properly. why would running the engine under high load make the sea foam work better? what is this , the middle ages? perhaps after you do this per annum you also go to the barber shop and get bleed... we don't want the plague to strike nor the four humours to go out of balance, now. yes doctor/priest, the leeches are good!

 

I don't believe that build up on the oil cap is an indicator of sludge. It gets that build up because it sits at the top of the engine,and the heated oil fumes rise. The original issue was I believe that some oil channels were not large enough to get enough flow to keep the buld up from happening. Again, flushing your engine every oil change should alleviate this problem. I think all places that change oil should make this a part of their service.

 

plus with the oil cap alot of what youre looking at is the buildup on the cap and the baffle, which can be seen on pretty much any engine that has been driven...mine has it, but my motor has no sludge at all.

 

either way, take it to lexus and get it inspected if youre afraid of the sludge...worse comes to worse they find sludge and theyll fix it since theres a recall on the 94-01 1mz 3.0 V6 engines

 

so, oil on the deep stick can look/smell nice and clean (assuming it was not changed the day before) and you could still have f'd up engine? awesome...

 

Like I said - flush it before every oil change - you'll sleep better.