Synthetic Bad for the TSX

[thisisntjared]

Originally Posted by rh77

let me guess... hole in the toilet paper??

[GasSavers_Ryland]

I would take it to the dealer and ask them how they are going to fix it.
as far as synthetic oils go, from what I could find out, they are made out of natural gas (yes, tecnicaly a dino-oil) that thru "science" (lets just say magic) is chemicaly altered in a controled way, just like they can turn natural gas in to all sorts of other things, firtlizer and so on, it's just a pure base to start out with, what you have is crud, and crud should not be showing up in a new engine yet, so they sold you and engine with crud, or a crud producing engine, and it will continue to produce crud untill fixed, or so is my opinion.

[psyshack]

Originally Posted by theclencher

Changing oil every 3,000 is an unecessary waste for most.

I agree. I will keep using my M1 and change it every 10k to 12k miles. And use M1 or PureOne filters.

As for the crud in the oil. Man that sucks! The fiber component is very strange. I have a buddy that has seen chicken bones put into Saturn engines by upset employee's. A few of the engines made it out to the public. Most were caught in house. He was very disturbed by this.

I hope your dealer has some forth right, very good techs on the pay roll. I would be a very hard to get along person at this point. If my car was burping out crud like that.

psy

[rh77]

Actually Jared, yes, no TP at all!

When I took that picture I was thinking that I'd be getting some poo-poo jokes. I mean, c'mon, I'd do the same

Oh you can bet your bottom dollar and take it to the bank (two cliches that make no sense together) that some serious "Nothing out of my Pocket" expenses will come of this and "WARRANTY!!!" and "State Attorney General" will be mentioned if this isn't resolved to the best of my limited mechanical knowledge.

Furthermore, I need reassurance that this stuff didn't wreck any other engine components for longevity or clog up the galleries as you mentioned, Ted. Honestly, we took delivery of the car with 7 miles on the odo., and took it easy on it for FE up to the change, with some redline runs to get the VTEC working and the engine exposed to it's normal operating range after the initial 1000 miles.

I have samples, documentation, and this thread if I need to get my attorney in on it -- but I hope it doesn't come to that.

Wouldn't anything the oil touches have to be replaced (block, head, crank, rods, pistons, valvetrain gadgets, pumps, etc.)??? That's a big (expensive) project -- at least I get a loaner car today if I can get Teggy started.

Yeah, I left the ignition on last night in the other car after I EOC'd into the garage. I just worked an 18+ hour, not-so-easy day, and I was frankly not thinking about everything. Luckily, a good friend/neighbor is going to offer a jump-start to get it going again this morning. Of all the times. The one car we have right now that works, I decide to render it worthless by draining the battery

Anyways, I'm heading to the dealer now to talk face-to-face with some techs. I think they'll get the idea that I ain't no dummy.

RH77

Originally Posted by Ted Hart

Hi, H-E-Double hockey sticks! I love this name!
About your oil change "chips"...it is NOT normal! There should be nothing of this magnatude in your oil! I suggest you get this (new?) car back to the dealer from whence you got it! It sounds like your timing chain tensioner is coming apart! And... your engine has pumped that mess through your oil pump, clogged up the galleries in the block / crankshaft / and rocker arms / shafts! Based on what you find (the source), I would start screaming "Warranty"! This is not normal!
About "break-in"oil... the engine is lapping in all sliding / rubbing surfaces when new. After the first 500 miles, I change it & the filter. Lots of metallic "fuzz" comes out! You don't want this in your engine! Replace with whatever kind of (new! not reclaimed!) oil and a new filter.Change both again at 3 K miles...every 3 K miles thereafter.
Synthetic oil...what is it? "Synthetic" sounds so neato! Actually, advertising hype being what it is ... I started digging in the literature. It turns out ... synthetic oils are really dino (petroleum) oils with their molecules 'sized' to be all the same . That's it...no more, no less! This is the "synthetic' part! Gads! been flim-flammed, again! The price? have you noticed? Yikes!
So...get thee back to the dealership! Prepare yourself to receive a bunch of flack! Don't swallow this for a minute! Last resort? Call / contact the factory! Tell the dealer this, too. Don't take no crap!
You have bought (IMHO) a piece of "bean counter" plastic crap...to increase profit margin! Let us know how this turns out! -Ted Hart

[onegammyleg]

I used to work at a Ford dealership , and if I know delaers they would say something like ,, ,,

¨We will test the sample of poo you provided ¨(but the results will come back as inconclusive-- (because they realy threw the sample in the trash))

Then they will reassure you that ¨if during the warranty period the engine fails it is covered completely be warranty.¨

If you make a fuss they may do a compresion test and show you the figures to make you feel better.
Unfortunately for you the compresion figures will stiil be at factory spec's and this will weaken your case.


So in all , I doubt they will do anything as such about it unless there is a subtsantial drop in HP or FE ,, which can be backed up by loss of compression or some abnormal engine noise.

A dealer will not strip and rebuild an engine just because of some unknown poo in the oil ,,they will wait for it to burst into flames first.,, then they will think about it.

[Spule 4]

Originally Posted by rh77

Actually Jared, yes, no TP at all!

When I took that picture I was thinking that I'd be getting some poo-poo jokes. I mean, c'mon, I'd do the same

Oh you can bet your bottom dollar and take it to the bank (two cliches that make no sense together) that some serious "Nothing out of my Pocket" expenses will come of this and "WARRANTY!!!" and "State Attorney General" will be mentioned if this isn't resolved to the best of my limited mechanical knowledge.

Wouldn't anything the oil touches have to be replaced (block, head, crank, rods, pistons, valvetrain gadgets, pumps, etc.)??? That's a big (expensive) project -- at least I get a loaner car today if I can get Teggy started.

Anyways, I'm heading to the dealer now to talk face-to-face with some techs. I think they'll get the idea that I ain't no dummy.

RH77

Don't mention lawyer until you need to, otherwise, they will quit talking to you and then it is your lawyer to their lawyer......$$$$$$

Depends on specs if anything did get wear that is out of spec from this junk (EG, cam starved for oil, bores scored, etc.) Many moons ago, we used to rebuild Toyota 22Rs that ate their timing chain covers, and sometimes you could salvage much, othertimes not.

In this case, probably not worth tear down and clean out, new motor time, or honestly, what Honda should do is get you another car as it will be flagged as having the motor replaced.

Best of luck to you, no envy on my part I am afraid.

[Spule 4]

May be able to work in under a Lemon Law in your state, check the details on that too?

[rh77]

Here's the scoop:

• No Plastic Found
• No Starter Failure

This is completely undramatic now that I know what happened (and BTW, "lawyer" is never mentioned until we go to "DEFCON III" -- need some diplomacy first).

A little preface: Under the engine bay is what we all at GS want -- an under-tray for lower wind resistance. To access the oil drain plug, a small panel has to be removed. More on this in a moment.

The techs drained all of the oil and paper-filtered it -- not a bit of crud. They also checked and replaced the filter -- nothing. With respect to the loss of power/FE, they ran diagnositic tests on the car's "black box" to note any events that would be close to triggering a CEL, but would'nt have serious enough to have done so -- and everything is running at peak efficiency at all RPMs, loads, temps, etc. They couldn't get the starter to fail despite their best tricks (there may be a tiny dead-spot somewhere on it that prevents it from kicking-over to the flywheel) -- I'm cool with that for now since it starts always starts on the second try.

Here's what very likely must have happened... There are no internal plastic pieces in the oil delivery area of the engine. As I was draining the oil, crud from the underpan was getting caught in the drainage stream and being deposited on the collection container, making it appear as if it was coming out of the oil pan. Me being the the freaking-out type immediately figured "major failure", and that the bits were coming from the crankcase.

The dealer is sending me back with the used strainer paper and old oil if I wish to perform an independent analysis to verify the results; furthermore, they changed the oil and filter, and replaced it with new some 5W-30 Castrol Syntec that I originally spent around $30 on. All-in-all a very good experience at the dealer (and I get the loaner car until Friday )

As far as power/FE, that's a mystery right now. My wife says that just before I took it in, it started to get really good FE again, so .

Conclusion/Plan:

1. I'll change the oil next time and run the drained oil through a coffee filter in a funnel.
2. Analyze the results and respond accordingly.
3. Switch back to Dino-Oil or Blend
4. Closely monitor power and/or/vs. FE

Good deal, Lucille. Now, we can get back to the business of hypermiling...

In the essense of full disclosure, the last tank of fuel was around 28.9 mpg (from memory), as I didn't intend on recording the results due to the impending doom -- and I didn't drive it too efficiently after the oil change since I thought it was ruined anyway. I'll add it as an arbitrary number with a comment, for full Scientific integrity of the GasLog.

Thanks to everyone for their insight. Occham's razor strikes again.

RH77

[JanGeo]

Yeah standard practice is to clean the drain pan and under side of the oil pan area near the drain plug before you drain the oil - and the oil filter should be clean before removing or the crud can get on the gasket when you reinstall the new filter.

As far as the Castrol Syntec I have used that with good results and abused the heck out of the oil change interval and it always seemed to stand up. Of course now I am a Synlube user and don't have to worry about changing the oil again . . . just reached 10,000 miles.

[Spule 4]

Lucky there, and it sounds like some things that I have done in the past....rebuilt a Volvo motor onetime in the early 1990s due to a similar situation....