Does anyone know if there is a sludge problem with our V6 engines? The same engine has been used in Ford's Explorers in the past, right?

 

change oil often and while waiting for it to drain count the explorers you see. my observation would be its a damn dependable power train especially when you see a lot of wore out ,dirty,dented ,bald tired examples

 

i had a major case of bubble gut one time and produced some pretty nasty sludge [&:]. i hope my stang doesnt do the same.

 

Someone's been watching CASTROL GT commercials again

Keep the oil clean and you should be fine,

 

There are some recent cars known to be prone to sludge issues. Not many are American brands, and none are Fords: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_sludge

 

Change the oil & filter often and use a quality synthetic oil(I use Mobile 1)and a Ford filter and you will have no sludge problem. This is cheap protection for your car.

 

Like they said, change your oil and filter, i change mine every 3,000 miles.

While we are on the topic, has anyone heard of, or used this RESTORE PRODUCT, its supposed to repair cylinder scratches http://www.restoreusa.com/

 

I used it a long time ago on a cougar with a v-6. Worked great, seamed to restore some lost power and it didn't use as much oil. It took about 1 oil change for it to start to work though! I'd use it again if needed! Once you use it, you always need to use it at oil changes.

 

Your best bet is to use synthetic oil. Synthetics aren't a fossil based product so they don't turn to into sludge. Plus you can change your oil 2 or 3 times less frequently to offset the cost. Dirt is another issue so use a quality filter - Motorcraft, ACDelco, Purelator, Wix are all good filters. If you are going to go for extended mileage between changes you can just replace the filter at say 5k to keep it clean, especiay if you drive on a real dusty, dirty roads. Synthetics don't breakdown but they do get dirty just like fossil bassed oils.

Real World note: On my old 95 3.8 Mustang I changed the oil around 12K mi. I put 280K miles on it before the head gaskets started leaking. When I tore the motor down no sluge but there was some scoring of the bearing from dirt. I was lazy most of the time and didn't change the filter at the half way point.
Wow, I'm looking at these pics and thinking about the milage and I want to call b.s on myself:-) Its been a couple of years since I took the pics and I'm questioning my memory now, but even if I cleaned up these parts some it wasn't extensive and you'd be seeing sludge remnants/evidence all over.
As always do your own research, ther is lots of technical info/studies to found on the web regarding synthetics.


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Sludge is a by-product of the lubricant, not the engine type.
Use quality oils with motor cleaning detergents and all will be fine.