Thought it might be worth opening a thread about this oil. My Tundra is now at about 115k miles and there's a lot of pretty good looking data coming out regarding this oil and it's ability to help break down some of the oil deposits in older engines. I have noticed over the winter that I can occasionally hear some timing chain noise for a few seconds on cold starts. I think we all know where that's coming from and I've read some reports of this oil helping. So - my last oil change I bought some and used it.
After maybe 500 miles or so, I do not hear any chain noise on start up. BUT - and it's a bit "but" - it's also warmer. It's been a cold winter and I park in a garage so I'd normally only hear the chain on starts when leaving work at anywhere from 0 to -30*F. Now that it's more like 20*F when I'm leaving work - it may just be due to warmer temps. Hard to know. I'll keep an eye on it and update after my next oil change.
What prompted me to start a thread on it is this: A few days ago when I started my truck to pull out of the garage i got a decent puff of smoke out the exhaust. And it smelled like burning oil. I've never had that before with this truck. And the timing may just be luck with the change in oil. However - it did concern me because it's never done that. It went away immediately as you'd expect if a small amount of oil had found its way into a cylinder while it was parked. But it was unmistakable in how it smelled as I backed out of the garage. I tow with it a lot. And I towed my snowmobiles yesterday for about 100 miles out and back. I've seen no additional oil burning either during towing or in the dozen or so starts after that. Including a few overnight cold starts. But I'm watching closely now.
Has anyone else used it and had good or bad experiences. It may be snake oil. I'm generally very skeptical of magic oil additives or special oils. There's pretty good large fleet data sets that suggest oil brand makes no difference in engine life so long as it meets the class standard. I usually use Mobil 1 synthetic 0w20. But I have no heartburn about using any other brand of similar oil. I've never had a toyota engine fail from a lubrication related issue regardless of what brand is used. But it does initially seem like it may have actually helped free up the timing chain tensioner. I'm worried it might have also resulted in a piston ring getting loose that was sealing better before or released a deposit on a valve guide seal or something like that that was actually keeping it from leaking down.
Or I might be fooled by randomness. Probably randomness. But - anyone else use it and have any immediate or long term benefits or harm?
After maybe 500 miles or so, I do not hear any chain noise on start up. BUT - and it's a bit "but" - it's also warmer. It's been a cold winter and I park in a garage so I'd normally only hear the chain on starts when leaving work at anywhere from 0 to -30*F. Now that it's more like 20*F when I'm leaving work - it may just be due to warmer temps. Hard to know. I'll keep an eye on it and update after my next oil change.
What prompted me to start a thread on it is this: A few days ago when I started my truck to pull out of the garage i got a decent puff of smoke out the exhaust. And it smelled like burning oil. I've never had that before with this truck. And the timing may just be luck with the change in oil. However - it did concern me because it's never done that. It went away immediately as you'd expect if a small amount of oil had found its way into a cylinder while it was parked. But it was unmistakable in how it smelled as I backed out of the garage. I tow with it a lot. And I towed my snowmobiles yesterday for about 100 miles out and back. I've seen no additional oil burning either during towing or in the dozen or so starts after that. Including a few overnight cold starts. But I'm watching closely now.
Has anyone else used it and had good or bad experiences. It may be snake oil. I'm generally very skeptical of magic oil additives or special oils. There's pretty good large fleet data sets that suggest oil brand makes no difference in engine life so long as it meets the class standard. I usually use Mobil 1 synthetic 0w20. But I have no heartburn about using any other brand of similar oil. I've never had a toyota engine fail from a lubrication related issue regardless of what brand is used. But it does initially seem like it may have actually helped free up the timing chain tensioner. I'm worried it might have also resulted in a piston ring getting loose that was sealing better before or released a deposit on a valve guide seal or something like that that was actually keeping it from leaking down.
Or I might be fooled by randomness. Probably randomness. But - anyone else use it and have any immediate or long term benefits or harm?
