I have a Corolla AE112R with 56,000k's and it's current oil doesn't look quite like golden brown, it's more a darker brown. Because I just bought the car I was thinking to run an engine flush treatment through before adding new oil. Toyota reckon that I shouldn't use their engine flush treatment because it could clean the engine too much causing more bad than good.

 

Is there perhaps another engine flush treatment that I could use or should I just not worry about it and change the oil and leave it at that?

Most oils have a detergency property in them which is at such a low level it wont harm the engine but enough to clean at the same time.

 

I would recomend steering clear of all engine flush treatments especially in older engines. For a good reason, example - carbon deposit dislodged and blocks off oil flow to upper cylinder cam housing and grind grind snap BANG! or crank bearings but you get the point.

 

My 2nd recommendation is get the engine upto normal temperature and drain the oil, do not remove the filter.

fill the engine to the correct level again and run the engine as previously described.

 

Then drain the oil again and remove and fit a new oil filter. also use quality recommended oil for your engine

 

There are other options too depending on why or how bad your engine is sludged this would include kero, sump off and rocker cover off.

And the flush proceedure afterwards as described above.

Yeah the oil isn't sludgy or anything but I was going to flush the oil twice as you said in your second recommendation once I knew it wasn't a good idea to use any flush treatments.

 

I tend to do stuff like this once I buy a second hand car :bash:

Oil can also change color quicker when using poor quality or dirty burning fuels, the oil in My dedicated LPG corolla is still clean when i change it after 10,000 km.

We use engine flush at work in every service, even in old cars. Havent had any complaints yet, ive used it in my 90 swift and it hasnt died. I don't think its necessary but yeh the customers paying for it :bash:

We use engine flush at work in every service, even in old cars. Havent had any complaints yet, ive used it in my 90 swift and it hasnt died. I don't think its necessary but yeh the customers paying for it :bash:

 

 

we use the stuff too, and lifter treatment.

 

at the end of the day its just an upsell i wouldnt run kero in any engine especially old ones as it does more harm then good.

 

the way Budowski described is the best way to flush an engine of old oil just be careful not to burn yourself the oil can be very hot.

Ive had to use the engine flush treatment at just about every dealer ive worked for. One of the dealers stopped using it after 3 engine failures on the road test after the flush.

The current dealer I'm at doesnt push it but its on a sign out the front and the customers asks for it very rarely.

 

I had the bottem end of a charade die on me after a flush at yet another dealer, in this case the foremans daughter neglected to have the oil changed for more than 40,000km and when we went to adjust the valves they were hadly recogniseable due to carbon build up and sludge.

So the forman insisted that we run engine flush through it. All the piston bearings let go i think it was the carbon was holding then together.

I could go on about what we did on the cheap to fix this but might be another 100 lines lol.

 

At the end of the day the damage was done by the neglect of the customer not getting regular service work but the extra damage caused by the flush in some cases was unreapairable.

 

I had a triton deisel that was completely sludged but always had regular service. But at 250,000km a deisel builds up alot of crap so i recommended sump off rocker cover off kero and brush. The sludge in the sump was so thick after an oil change it still covered the oil pick up.

I advised that a re ring and bearings may be an option if this doesnt go well but it went well took 4 hours to clean from strip down to double flush of oil and 2 filters after woods and regular oil changes every 5000km. The car has managed to clock up to 290,000km and the customer says for some reason it has alot more power now. haha i wonder why :bash:

 

Oh one more, honda engines have fine tolerances so an engine flush can be devistating, ive seen camshafts bind up and snap in these. Due to the oil being so thin during a flush that it did not protect the cam support housing contact to the cam shaft and that was at 60,000 km oil change every 5000km and a flush treatment everytime.