so my neighbor owns a 2005 4.0 mustang with 175,000 miles and she tells me the car is making a ticking noise , so I told her I would take a look , start the car . omg thats no tick ,its a loud clack ,clack ,clack sound ! I see the oil light is on , so I turn it off and check the oil . its barley reading on the dip stick , I add till full and start again clack,clack,clack !
I hook up the sct and no codes to b found , so I decide to remove valve cover see if I can spot any issues ......this is what I found








I asked, you do change the oil right !! she says oh yes ,I get oil spot to change it every 8000 miles !!! I tell her , you should probably start shopping for a new motor !

 

Sheesh... Who's been changing it? You may not know the answers but I sure am curious just for curiosity's sake... How the hell does it sludge up so bad if she is getting it done every 8000 miles... Perhaps wrong viscosity/weight motor oil?

Don

 

At least she got her use out of it. 175k miles!

 

Honestly I'm surprised she managed to make it that many miles being that the engine looks like it's been running for 20 years on bad oil!

While the topic is a dead engine...what do you guys recommend to make sure sludging doesn't occur? Is there anything I should do in addition to running fully synthetic oil and doing 7500-10000 mile oil changes? Or is that really all?

Thanks!

 

I'm not sure she was totally honest with me ! when I check the oil , it was barely reading on the dip stick , and the dip stick was sludge and burnt as well . I'm thinking she missed a few

 

Dude you scared the **** out of me when you put that thread title and I saw your username... WHEW! I thought you were talking about your motor.

 

i add an engine cleaner to the oil right before changing it and let it run for a few minutes.
i forget what brand it is, but has solvents in it.
keeps it a little cleaner than just changing the oil.
and i'm very **** about changing the oil, 3k miles or 6 months whatever comes first. but thats just me.

 

lol nooo if it were me title would have read (lost the love of my life today) !!!!!!

 

Either she wasn't getting it changed often enough, or the place she was taking it to wasn't actually changing the oil. Or they were using something like 20/50 weight lol. But that should NOT happen with oil changes every 8k miles.

 

^^ +1 ...I cant even imagine a build up like this! I doubt that oil ever EVER got changed! Sure she didnt say every 80,000 miles LOL