it may be valve guide seals.

 

Bad valve guides typicaly show up as blue smoke on a cold start, especially if sitting overnight,
or longer. Also, if idling for a minute or two at a light, as you pull away, again, if the guides are
bad, you'll see blue smoke from the exhaust. What the OP has described does not match typical value guide symptoms.

Can't guess what caused all that the sludge in your car.
There were sludge problems in the 3.0 liter 2000-2004 Avalons, not to mention
similar period Chrysler 2.7L motors; the sludge can kill the engine - essentially oil starvation.
I had a bad case of sludge in my very first car - an ancient '56 Ford V8.
The cure" was an old-fashioned, cheap, fast, and (very) dirty method of removing built-up
contaminants -as in sludge- and even today should not hurt anything:
OTOH, maybe I'm 1,000% wrong about that.
"You pays your money and you takes your chances".
Since you've already used sea-foam in the oil, you understand the basic idea.
Now really do the job.

(A) Drain the existing oil, and refill with 80% / 20% || Oil / Solvent
(We used Kerosene - and it's still a good choice)
So if the car takes 5 quarts of oil, then 4 quarts oil + 1 quart Kero.
Now run the car at idle only for a 5-10 minutes until oil is hot, drain mixture -plus 2 quarts
of suspended sludge- out,

--- You *might* even want to do (A) twice, depending on how black & heavy the oil+sludge you take out on the first run is -- -

(B) Put in a new oil filter, refill with 5 quarts fresh oil, NO SOLVENT, run at idle until oil is hot again, drain oil again, toss out filter,

(C) Install 2nd new filter, and fill with good oil,

(D) if you feel it's a good idea, go for a 3rd change w/new filter.

Most (but not 100%) of the sludge will be gone, now see how she runs.

Hope this helps and no one goes ballistic on me.. though full of electronics, these are just cars, not Princesses.

 

It may be a clogged pcv valve hose or fitting on the intake for pvc hose, try to remove one end of hose and check in with metal wire, pull it through.
Try to change oil and filter with the trusted one, 5w30.

 

Here's a theory.

When they put the new oil in the car they allowed the foil seal on the top of one of the oil bottles to go down the funnel into the valve cover, and it is now blocking the return passage to the crankcase. Oil builds up in the valve cover and gets sucked through the PCV valve.

 

Um... This thread was last posted to almost 3 years ago. My guess is the issue has probably been resolved by now.

 

Ya think? Could be. I am having a similar issue. If this issue was resolved I would be very interested in knowing what the problem turned out to be.

 

Or possibly the car was sold?

 

Just bought a new to me 06 LS430. Runs great, except. After maybe 1/4 mile or so at WOT, close throttle, and then pick back up, a big cloud of smoke from the exhaust. Then if I park within a few miles, I get another cloud at startup. A quick pass or normal driving no issues whatsoever. I took it to a Toyota dealer today. We'll see if they come up with anything.

 

OK, a little embarrassing. The car was overfilled with oil.

To start with, this is the first car I ever bought without checking the oil. If somebody is selling their car with low dirty oil, that's probably typical of how it always was. Always good to check the oil. Anyhow, I purchased the car from my next door neighbor, knew the car was well cared for and had it's oil changed recently at the local Toyota Dealer. I actually never opened the hood. After the first cloud of smoke incident I checked it. The stick was wet, and the oil was very clean. Obviously in hind sight I should have been looking for high, but I was looking for normal or low. The accumulation of oil at the bottom of the stick fooled me into thinking it was low, and I added another quart to an already overfilled engine!

I took it it to the Toyota Dealer that had serviced it last. They called me and admitted it was their fault. It had over 2 quarts too much! All seems to be well now, and no more smoke. I have had dealings with this dealer before. I have to say they are honest, and do the right thing when they make a mistake.

 

All's well that ends well.

It's good to know that there was no damage from the over filling. I've seen engines end up with seal damage due to the oil level being too high. Now you can move forward and enjoy the heck out of a great car!