New Kia with 30K miles? Would these be mostly highway miles? Your engine might not be damaged much. Our car with an oil change calculator is good for around 12k miles with approx 50% city and 50% highway driving time. I will guess that if all were highway miles, the change period would be 15,000 miles. That, reportedly has a 50% safety factor making 30k miles feasible. The only problems may be that you ran 2 quarts down, reducing the available detergent quantity and the mileage numbers I stated assume synthetic oil.
My thinking is based on practical experience over the years involving minor teardowns on several dozen engines that suffered the same kind of abuse.
In every single case the engine was damaged goods. The only difference was the degree of damage. Some had rods through the block, others were fried and seized, and others ran fine with no apparent issues but under the surface any or all of the following were damaged; crank journals, bearings, lash adjusters, cam lobes, cylinder walls, piston rings, etc.
I have no reason to believe for one second this engine should be a lone mutant that has escaped damage.
It is also a bone simple job to drop an oil pan and pop a few bearing caps for starters. This does not involve much of a teardown at all. Based on the 99%+ probability of damage it would then be time to fish or cut bait.
And full KBB is only warranted if the person buying it does not know about this problem or is being lied to and is misinformed or gullible enough to think everything is fine.
In my opinion this is a 2 grand vehicle; maybe. Lord only knows what the rest of the vehicle is like.
What proof do you need?? 30k with the same oil filter and oil?? That engine has had some serious life taken from it. An experienced tech with any heavy engine experience doesn’t even need to pop the hood to tell you that its days are numbered.
transman
I don’t understand WHY you want to change the oil NOW. Why the concern? No one is forcing you to change the oil. So what, if not changing the oil voids the warranty?
As a matter of social conscience, you should tell the eventual buyer (or, leave a note in the glove box) that you never changed the oil. It’s the decent thing to do.
I smell a TROLL!!! This is a phony post trying to get people’s feathers ruffled. Nothing more. Notice how the OP has disappeared.
Unless there’s evidence of sludging I don’t think a flush will do any good. It’s pretty certain that at the very least the lifespan of the engine has been reduced. I’m guessing you already know that.
Assuming it’s running okay, I have to respectfully disagree with those suggesting getting rid of the vehicle. The engine’s life might probably have been reduced from 250,000 miles to 175,000 miles (just a wild guess), but it that works for you I’d suggest keeping it. The point is that unless there’s already evidence of damage you may have a good useful lifespan, and the difference in value between having kept it for 10 years vs. 12 years will be too insignifcant to worry about.
With respect to OK4450, unless there’s evidence of a problem I’d be reluctant to even bother looking at the bearings. If you find there is damage, then what? Do you do a rebuild, do you sell it, or do you just keep driving it anyway? Me, I’d keep driving it and do the rebuild when the engine wears out…if ever.
One thing I definitely would recommend is that you begin to monitor your oil level more regularly. Not only will this prevent it from getting low again, but it’ll also allow you to catch abnormal usage that might have been caused by the neglect.
Assuming this isn’t a troll post, and I agree it sounds like one, I would say this is a situation where I would take a sample of the old oil and send it out for analysis and change it right away. Even with the dilution of fresh oil having been added, any serious engine wear markers will still be apparent in the oil.
The only thing to do is start changing the oil on a regular basis now, and hope for the best. If the analysis says there are lots of metal components in the old oil, start saving for a new engine or car . . .
I don’t agree that it’s a troll post. Many people post on here and disappear forever; either due to not wanting to do a search for their now moved down the list post, not liking what they’re hearing, or even embarassment due to what they’ve done.
Let me add this in regards to comments that there should be no damage if there is oil in it at all. It doesn’t work that way and look at the following as a prime example.
Subaru towed in with over 25k miles on it. Original owner, never changed the oil once.
The engine was running great up to the second it seized up.
Dropping the oil pan showed a crankshaft that had just about every shade of blue and purple you could imagine on it; from one end to the other. What caused this? Sludging.
This discoloration (due to heat from oil starvation) did not occur over a few hundred miles. This happened over a span of thousands of miles with the crank and bearings overheating and wearing until one of the rod bearings decided to swap sides, which then led to a screeching halt.
Note I mentioned an oil starvation problem. This particular engine was not low at all and had about 4.5 qts in it.
I would not only state the engine in this post is damaged goods but I’d lay cold hard cash down on a bet (and I never gamble) that it’s damaged. The fact an engine may not exhibit any outward signs of problems does not mean for one second there’s not serious issues going on inside; as the owner of the Subaru above discovered. Fine one second, seized and sitting on the side of the road the next second.
Whether it lasts another 50k miles, or even 2k, is anybody’s guess. If the car were mine (it never would be) it would never be taken outside the city limits that’s for sure.
I’ve no doubt that there’s damage. I guess my point was that since it has not yet progressed to the point of seizure, and it’s lifespan is now an unknown, I’d be inclined to keep the oil level up and keep driving it until it truely failed and rebuild it then rather than rebuild it now. There’s no way of knowing if it’ll seize in 5,000 miles or go another 150,000 miles.
If I were currently set up to take on an engine rebuild as a normal part of my day (oh, to be retired with a nicely equipped shop!), then I’d probably drop the pan, but I’d be fooling myself if I thought I was and I doubt if the OP is either.
Well, I’ve heard of big-rig diesels sometimes going 100K between oil changes (though they may have had dual-bypass filtration systems or equivalent), and also of sludged engines with under 10K total miles. Since you’ve only used 2 quarts in 30K, you’ve no direct evidence of excessive wear (does it smoke?). Anyway, I wouldn’t flush, I’d just drive on. But what do I know?
Did the OP ever come back? Rocketman
Nope.
He probably got stuck on the road when the engine seized, and is trying to hitchhike back home.
If one doesn’t think damage occurs due to low lubricant consider the case of a Subaru that was towed in with a seized manual transmission. This incident involved a very weird story of which some did not surface until after the last incident.
The transmission oil capacity was about 3.7 quarts. This transmission was down about 2 pints and the transmission mainshaft rear bearing (expensive) turned purple and seized up rock solid not once, not twice, but 3 times due to lack of lubricant with nothing else in the transmission being harmed. The really irritating part was that the 3rd time was after I had replaced the bearing; and yes, the gear oil level was on the FULL mark.
It took me about 3 or 4 days of thinking to sort this one out, but the point being that one might not suspect that a transmission being a down a measly 2 pints out of a 3.7 quart capacity would cause this.
Well, it seems pretty clear to me. Two people on the internet, including one so skilled he doesn’t even have to examine the patient, have told you to junk a car that is capable of running when it’s down two quarts of oil. I would say your dirty is clean, uh, duty is clear.
Heck, if you don’t get rid of the car, you’re just as bad as Hitler.
That’s the ZombieWoof corollary to Godwin’s Law, which states that anyone on the internet who compares someone to Hitler has ipso facto lost the argument.
Anyone who starts a sentence with “Heck” or “Hell” (ZW doesn’t work blue) or uses the phrase “for esses and grins/giggles” or any variant thereof, is just as bad as someone who compares someone to Hitler.
Did you check the transmission’s oil pump? Oh, wait, that’s right, nevermind. For a minute I thought your were talking about a comparable system.
Maybe this could be a teachable moment for me, so just indulge me for a moment. Why did it take you 3 or 4 days to come to the conclusion that a bearing was seizing because of lack of lubrication?
What happpened the 4th time? Did you replace or remachine the mating surface for the bearing (keep in mind I don’t know what how that bearing operates, but it seems like it must be in contact with some other surface to do the job of a bearing).
Big rig diesels have very large oil sumps, and many have multiple filters. So they can go a lot longer before changing oil. These rigs are seldom cold and have very few cold starts per 1000 miles.
In other words, big rigs operate under nearly ideal conditions with respect to sludging. Cars used in limousine service that are constantly moving have long oil chnage intervals as well. OP’s high mileage in a short time indicates the car covered a lot of miles quiclkly with likely a lot of highway miles, which are easy on oil and engine.
I therefore suggested to just change the oil and filter and keep driving.
What happened in this case is the car was towed to us with a seized transmission. The story was that the trans had been repaired in CO right before trailering the car back to OK.
The oil level was on the full mark and a teardown showed the large mainshaft bearing on the rear of the shaft was blue in color and seized up like it was welded. Nothing else in the trans was damaged at all.
Assuming that someone had used the wrong horseshoe collar on the bearing (avail. in varying thicknesses to set end play) I set it up properly with a new bearing, filled the oil to the FULL mark and an 8 mile test drive showed that it was perfect.
Two weeks and about 400 miles it comes back on the wrecker with a seized transmission. The oil level was full and again, the same bearing was blue and seized up solid. (Keep in mind that lubrication is all by gear tooth splash)
Now I’m ticked and the owner agrees to leave the car for a while to think this out.
On Sun. evening at home it struck me that the transmission might have the wrong dipstick in it so on Mon. morning I pulled several sets of keys for new Subarus on the lot and checked that stick against both a manual trans and auto trans dipstick. The auto trans sticks are identical except for being about 1" longer; which means the stick showed FULL but in actuality the oil was a couple of pints down.
A discussion with the owner and NOW he reveals that he lost the stick in CO along with some gear oil which led to the first bearing seizure. The shop up there rounded up a used stick; which just happened to be the wrong one of course.
The reason only this bearing seized was because it receives most of it’s lube from rotation of the 5th gear gearset which is in the rear section of the transmission. Since the case tapers up a bit this means that when the oil level dropped enough the 5th driven gear on the countershaft was not picking up enough oil to feed the mainshaft gear and bearing.
This one had me thinking on and off all week long and for some reason on Sun. night at home this scenario just hit me all of a sudden.
Point being that one would not think that only being down 2 pints out of a total capacity of approx. 7 or 8 pints would cause this kind of damage on something like slow rotating gears in a manual transmission but it did. Light use around town was not as much of a problem but once on the open highway the bearing would buy the farm.
Just when you’ve done it by the numbers for the 3rd time …you find out the numbers were wrong. Go figure.
Change the oil and filter very soon. 30,000 miles? You have very likely shortened the life of your engine. But you’ll probably unload it on some unlucky person in the next couple of years, right? Glad I won’t be the next owner of your vehicle.
No idea what you mean by “my puzzlr answer was better than the one you selected”… this is a web forum and the people here have no connection with the radio show except for perhaps occasionally listening to it.
Diesel engines are less hard on the oil than gas engines too. Though the oil does tend to soot up and look terrible pretty quick.