does oil break down on a really long drive?

[Adambf]

I went for a drive from brisbane to sydney and did most of the trip with very few breaks.

Towards the end of my trip i noticed my bf was making tappety noises when accelerating. Seemed down on power too. I lifted the hood to have a look and noticed top of motor was very very hot. But temperature showed between a quarter and half, no normal. But it was very hot under hood.

Would the oil boil up driving for so long and engine badly heat soaked.

Never had it behave that way before and now drives lovely with no issues?

Does oil get too hot and stop lubricating properly?

Or maybe it was pinging abit with heat and fuel octane wasnt high enough.

[BradEL]

Sounds like it was starting to overhead by the sounds of it, best to get it checked out properly. Especially if the engine is hotter than normal but guage isnt indicating it.

[sprintman1]

Using any coolant? Do you use 98 octane?

[ratter]

how old is the oil?
Have you checked the oil level?

[sprintman1]

And yes oil shears down in viscosity. That's why oil specs are more important than the stated viscosity on the bottle/ jug.

[Spinner77]

Have to admire your economy with words, Sprintman1!

However, care to elaborate on your point about 98 octane?

[sprintman1]

Originally Posted by Spinner77

Have to admire your economy with words, Sprintman1!

However, care to elaborate on your point about 98 octane?

Old habit. And learnt decades back to use the best fuel available no matter what the handbook says. Also Falcon engine utilises the higher octane for better power/torques (apologies Top Gear). Will look for the web link that gives the figures for 4.0 engine with the different fuels tonight, got a horse to feed!

[ltd]

Originally Posted by Adambf

I went for a drive from brisbane to sydney and did most of the trip with very few breaks.

Towards the end of my trip i noticed my bf was making tappety noises when accelerating. Seemed down on power too. I lifted the hood to have a look and noticed top of motor was very very hot. But temperature showed between a quarter and half, no normal. But it was very hot under hood.

Would the oil boil up driving for so long and engine badly heat soaked.

Never had it behave that way before and now drives lovely with no issues?

Does oil get too hot and stop lubricating properly?

Or maybe it was pinging abit with heat and fuel octane wasnt high enough.

Open the oil cap and look for a milkshake. It's not normal for it to start making noises at the end of a long trip - you may have a cracked head. Had the same happen to my daily driver. All because of a $15.00 thermostat that stopped opening.

[gregaust]

And the big question is ?? What oil are you using ?

[Adambf]

Its a valvoline synguard.

I think it was 15w/40

[marty351]

Pull the dipstick and check fluidity. Rub a little between fingers, and if it feels watery, your oil is not healthy. Also drip factor- that is when It drops. The longer the droplet the better, like honey.

[sprintman1]

Originally Posted by marty351

Pull the dipstick and check fluidity. Rub a little between fingers, and if it feels watery, your oil is not healthy. Also drip factor- that is when It drops. The longer the droplet the better, like honey.

So what do you use?

[Mainlube]

If you service regularly at the correct intervilles,

with a correct spec'ed oil, then your oil will be fine.

Just because you're on a long trip, doesn't mean your oil will break down.

Your oil works on reserve of additives and the base oil will survive 3 or 4 lots of additives,

(we see this with Puradyn Filters - extended change) your engine could easily be running a little hotter than

normal on your trip due to the conditions you were in. (hot climate, hills, wind direction etc)

This certainly doesn't mean your oil is breaking down, fair question but no.

Cheers

Steve

[Adambf]

Car also runs a generic tune. Maybe it was too hot and running too much timing?

Ive never heard it make noise like that before. Since then its been running sweet again.

[PHANTMXR6]

Generic tune????

That'll be half the trouble right there. Get rid of it and go from there.

[foxtrot3]

Hi. Did you check your oil level and how many K's since it was last serviced? What sort of work has it been doing between the last service and your trip? Cheers MD

[Adambf]

Oil was changed 2 days before trip.

Could it be pinging? Generic tune not adjusting for heatsoaked motor? Its never done it since.. just sounded terrible after about 6 hours straight driving but after motor cooled down never hapoened again

On drive back there was no issue

[Adambf]

Car also had 98 octane fuel as well.

[sprintman1]

Originally Posted by Adambf

Car also had 98 octane fuel as well.

Weird as it hasn't been hot lately.

[MattSAU2XR8]

If the engine is hotter than usual then I'd suggest it could be due to:
- Making too much heat (very heavy load, very high speed, running too lean, running too much advance)
- Not getting rid of heat (blocked thermostat, blocked radiator water passages or airflow, not enough coolant, water pump belt slipping)
- Excess heat getting into water instead of exhaust (leaking head gasket)

Simply driving from Melbourne to Sydney should have no effect on temperature. Assuming the tune wasn't done immediately before you left and that there's nothing particularly bad about valvoline oil I'd be leaning towards a thermostat or head gasket problem as people above have said. Best get someone to look at it pronto because if it IS the thermostat its a $20 part but if you keep running it hot you'll break the head and then it'll end up being $1000+

[sexyxe]

How did this bloke manage to get himself banned in 10 posts, five of which are in this thread? That's impressive.

[99AUXR]

A previous member on here who trolls our forum known as the HULK.

[PHANTMXR6]

Originally Posted by sexyxe

How did this bloke manage to get himself banned in 10 posts, five of which are in this thread? That's impressive.

It's the Hulk.

[ltd]

I think this incredulous effort of being banned in ten posts earns him the title of "The Incredible Hulk".

[Cav]

Originally Posted by sprintman1

Old habit. And learnt decades back to use the best fuel available no matter what the handbook says. Also Falcon engine utilises the higher octane for better power/torques (apologies Top Gear). Will look for the web link that gives the figures for 4.0 engine with the different fuels tonight, got a horse to feed!

I tried different fuels in my FGX XR6 ute towing a caravan at a steady speed of 80kms/h on flat country with no wind for four days.

I used 98, 95, 91 and E10. Consumption stayed a steady 17 point something with all fuels. Highest consumption was 18.3 on hilly country.

[snakeoil]

ute looks great cav

[mik]

Originally Posted by Cav

I tried different fuels in my FGX XR6 ute towing a caravan at a steady speed of 80kms/h on flat country with no wind for four days.

I used 98, 95, 91 and E10. Consumption stayed a steady 17 point something with all fuels. Highest consumption was 18.3 on hilly country.

image

thats about what my s2 au xr6 towing a similar load gets perhaps sitting at about a 100, but yours is pretty decent imo, yours would be a tad heavier i reckon, and you have more ponies under the bonnet .

getting back to the oil thing , i think oil is more likely to degrade in the city environment in traffic jams and doing short hops, not as much air flow cooling through the radiator, more load on the engine as your stopping and starting more often, and the cold start ratio/warm up time to miles travelled allows less time to burn off contaminents in the oil , thats my take on it anyway.

[MattSAU2XR8]

Short trips might produce more contamination of the oil, i.e. soot and also unburned fuel, but in a petrol engine you'd think as soon as it got up to a decent temperature all the fuel dissolved in the oil should boil off again and get burned off via the PCV system or similar.

Probably the main thing that would 'wear the oil out' would be getting it really hot if the engine was working really hard. Even if the temp gauge was in the normalish range there might be some much hotter surfaces in there, eg. under the pistons.

But all this talk of long drives and short drives and city traffic wearing out the oil reminds me of vehicle glovebox handbooks that more or less say you need to see your dealer MUCH more often for some additional servicing unless every trip is between 15 and 25 kms at an average speed of 45 to 51 km/h :-(

[FGX335]

Lol, Hulk trolls from the grave!

[sprintman1]

Short trips kill oil. Fuel dilution, more contaminants, oil shears to a lower viscosity etc etc.