Hey small update on whats happening here.

I changed the oil on wednesday instead of saturday because I had a little free time in the morning. I purchased Castrol GTX HighMileage this time around with a Purolator PureOne filter.

The oil changed consirably in color, it went from a rich brown @ 3500 miles to a near black @ 3800.
Whats this say to me ? That the MMO helped clean up the motor drastically
Can I prove this ? No

The oil filter was a mess, it was an STP regular cheap filter. When I went to take it off the car, the round gasket came off of the filter and oil came flying out of it. It wound up having a defective or overwhelmed anti-drain back valve which lead to no/low oil pressure at startup which was giving me a split second rattle at cold startup.

I couldnt link the rattle to the filter because after doing some searching I came to the conclusion that it was the timing chain tensioner releasing oil while sitting for some hours.But when I installed the new filter (which I partially filled with oil first) and topped off with oil, I went to start the car and it rattled for a few seconds untill oil circulated. And since then that rattle at startup is gone.

I cut open the filter and what a same, the anitdrain valve was stuck in the open position, the element was full and more or less fell apart when I handled it. There was NO bypass spring.

Im happy now that its out and I will never put another STP on a car again. I also recommend noone else does here too. No pics because I opened it up at work and couldnt bring it home because it all fell apart.

 

Interesting read. I don't get down here all that often. I suppose that each to his own as they say. If this makes you happier or gives you better peace of mind then carry right on.

I don't tend to do additives, nor do I do the mileage in the old XJ to get near a recommended OCI, and so drop the oil a couple of times per year whether or not.

One thing I did notice throughout the thread is that apart from the very beginning, you don't mention the air cleaner.

Surely this is just as important in preventing crud in the engine

Also with all the other engine cleaning products that have been used in the 4500 miles I feel it would be very difficult to attribute something to any one of them.

Over the Summer there was quite a bit floating around the forums about 'Seafoam'. never tried it myself, not sure I would want to.

If you are really worried about sludge, why not drop the oil pan/sump and give it a good clean. That way your cleaning aditives will not just be diluting the stuff and putting it back into the oil or worse sending it round the engine to boldly block passages that were not blocked before.

And finally don't know, or didn't notice but have you read this:
http://www.carbibles.com/engineoil_bible.html

it explains quite a lot.

All the best,

 

What a read, I started reading through that site at 1130 and just finished up reading through that and the BMW and SAAB links too.

My motor is nowhere near that extreme, peeking into the oil filler neck everything seemed nice and clean.

As for the air filter.. Its only 4 months old and I'll be replacing it soon.

 

A bit like War and Peace to be sure. Now I know what I can do with all the old hard drives that are kicking around the place.

Will post up some pics, when I can find the camera.

 

Bump !

Today I changed out the motoroil along with a transmission flush.

The mileage is 76,8xx miles. The oil that was in the motor was Castrol GTX highmileage 5w30, its been in since a little under 74k (around 73,800 or so).

So the mileage on this OCI right around 3,050 miles. 1,000 of them was from a roadtrip from NYC to Niagara Falls in Buffalo, 80mph cruise control most of the way there and back with WOT pulls and 65mph for about 250miles.

The oil was a deep brown, Im next to certain the oil itself could have gone another 3k miles. It did a great job, smoothed the motor , cleaned it out some. How do I know ? check out these photos of the filter @ 3k miles.
filter element condition






oil color, I added about 8oz of MMO for the last 300 miles maybe. You can see the deep brown color here




what I replaced it with


hehe

The "same" filter. I use qoutes because...its the same brand,same part number on the box and stamped onto the filter, purchased at the same store but...
To my surprise this one is made in Germany, Its half inch longer, thicker casing, heavier, and completely different filter element. Along with a spring bypass, verses a cap.

I seen this one when I was looking for a filter with a better box ( I dunno , OCD maybe) and was shocked. I then tried to find more to buy them but it was the only one of its kind out of 5.

The oil I used this time was Penzoil Platinum 5w30.

So as they say pictures are worth a thousand words. In this case I gave a thousand words AND photos.

So to anyone who insists on taking a full OCI 10k, go right ahead. Worse then whats photo'd is in store for you and your motor.

 

All the little white areas in my horrible photos are dust buildups. I dont even live in a dusty area and the filter was LOADED, I can pick them off like little lint *****. And those are big enough to catch, what happens to the smaller micron particles.. the oil absorbs it. So going to long will saturate the oil IMO with that. This time I managed to save some oil and will hopefully get a UOA later on, but not untill my daughters born.

 

The view from an Englishman..........

I do quite a lot of short journeys to work (3 miles), and in my experience, it is these that knacker the oil. Many cars driving at speed on motorways can keep their oil for well over 10,000 miles without trouble.

I am not applying science, but I reckon with my use pattern, it is time to change the oil and filter at least every year, maybe sooner. Generally this means about every 7000 miles, but in my first year with my Rover 75 I went twice England-Rome, Italy in 2 months, so got up to over 10,000 before changing the oil. I have just started with a Jaguar again (XJ6 aluminium body), but my Rover 75 with a 2.5 litre is now on 84,000 and starting to burn a little oil now. As engines wear they seem to put more muck into the oil than when the engine was young. So I tend to be cautious, because whatever is said, oil is cheap and engines are expensive !!

My new Jaguar is on 30,000 so I reckon between 7000-10000 for oil and filter changes, with regular dipstick checks. Oil at the moment is very, very clean, I assume selling dealer changed it. Other thing to remember is that whilst Jaguar may say 10,000 miles between services, they also say " or 12 months whichever is sooner".

 

keep note the 10,000 OCI is for *ideal* driving situations. A cold start in the winter with a 3 mile commute is WAY past extreme conditions. My Jaguar see alot of shorts trips at less then 4 or 5 miles each trip, with a lot of idling and low speed acceleration. As is true with any car in a city envirement Especially NYC.

With that said rarely do engines fail due to running oil for 7k miles verses running it for 3k miles. Low oil levels contribute to that much more, and skipping oil changes all together do that. Also hardly do engines seize below 150k miles anyway. Its all personal preference and having the motor run at max efficiency.

Plus from a performance standpoint motors with regular OCI every 3 or 4 months perform better than neglected motors. I use the term neglect because I am in NYC and any car here that will run 7k or 8k miles on DINO oil, is pushing it to the extreme. NYC ages car VERY fast.

My commute to work is 6 miles each way, luckily I have my 2010 civic to take that abuse. My gauge temp reachs normal temp when Im about 1 mile away from work, and my heat start getting toasty as soon as I pull in to park. Then I shut her down and leave it for 8hours, just to repeat the process. All on light to light streets ( a traffic light every .2 miles ).

Thats abuse on oil and an engine if you ask me. The Jaguar is just a leisure car, and look at that filter with just 3kmiles on it ! At the very least replace the filter sooner and top off the .5 qt or so afterwards. For the motor sake !

-vic

 

I half expected someopne else to make the joke i am about to.. Everytime you wrote OCI throughout this thread all that ran through my mind was OCD..haha Good for you for taking such care of the engine.. it will last you a long time.. personally i dont have the time in my day to put that much attn to my motoroil.. Thankfully men like yourself do all the legwork for lazy asses like me

 

yes haha, OCD is what it is. But you know its really a minimal effort to just change the oil every 3 or 4 months.

either way, silly me Ive poisened my mind with the idea of trading her in : -[

 

I changed the oil on my 96 XJR for the first time today. The oil filter (STP) was DRY
Never seen anything like this. What can cause the oil filter to be empty??

 

I will be facetious and say the dry filter was caused by lack of oil! You don't want to think about that one. How much oil came out of her? Perhaps it's a blocked bypass valve?

I used to use Marvel Mystery Oil but am now a reformed character. I have found that the high mileage oils are much better at cleaning up the engine. If that is, with one or two nonJaguar exceptions, so very important?

 

10,000 miles isn't bad for an oil change interval. That's what I use for my 1997 Lexus, although I use a high quality PureOne oil filter and Mobil1 (synthetic).

If I were using Fram and bottom shelf oil, I would probably stick to the 3000 mile recommendation...

 

You sure it wasn't the air cabin filter? :P

 

[quote=Dan R;214418]I will be facetious and say the dry filter was caused by lack of oil! You don't want to think about that one. How much oil came out of her? Perhaps it's a blocked bypass valve?

Got 8 quarts out of her. been sitting idle for weeks but I think gravity would keep the filter full. I was expecting a face full of oil when I took it off.

 

I used the STP on this car once, caused a rattle at startup. The reason is a faulty anti-drain back valve. not holding the oil in the filter, on my car its mounted on a 90degree angle so cant get by with a faulty one of thiose. Ill go ahead and assume your XJR has the filter mounted the same way.

Use puralator pureonepremium filter, put an end to my rattle at startup.

Your car sat for a while so my guess is all the oil eventually drained out of it, and dried up. Thats just a guess, Ill go ahead and let retired aircraft engineer assistants chime in here.



Just to add, Im not putting anymore MMO into the oil. Just changed oil a few weeks ago with PP 5w30 and didnt add any. Have 78,100 miles on her now, will change the filter 80k, top off and run this oil to 85k.

 

[quote=paulZ;214606]Looks like you dodged a bullet on that one! Put in a good filter, Jag or Mahle. Make sure there is oil circulating in the filter after running the engine, filter should be warm.

 

Also, top off the filter with oil before installing it. Sure some will drip out while your putting it one, but once you make contact with the thread it will stop. You definately do not want to install it without oil in it.