Oil leaks

[mckrishes]

I have a 2007 Honda Odyssey that uses 5w-20. It has some oil leaks. Uses about a quart every 2000 miles on mobil 1 high mileage 5w-20. I was wondering if anyone has had success using 5w-30, 10w-30 or even 10w-40.

Topic

[Richard Kirshy]

Are you asking if switching would reduce the leakage?
If so, my thought would be no.
Synthetic oils tend to flow easier than conventional oil.
Many times you’ll hear of someone who has ran conventional oil for many years and miles, then decided to switch to synthetic on a older vehicle.
Only to discover oil leaks where none use to be due to synthetic oils ability to flow.

[mckrishes]

I was wondering if moving up in grade would help. I’ve been using synthetic for the past 100k miles. Currently it has aboun 200k miles on it.

[Richard Kirshy]

Just to be clear..
When you say you use a quart in 2000 miles, you do mean leaking, not burning.
If indeed you are leaking oil, consider the vehicle does have, by your account 200,000 miles.
That being the case…. seals and gaskets are going to become brittle and shrink ( just a fact ) and leaks are going to occur.
Only sure way to stop them would be to replace them.
You could try an oil additive to help rejuvenate the seals.
Though there is no promise that will work.

[mckrishes]

There is no burning of oil. Just multiple leaks. It is an old car with high miles. I just think that spending the money and time to fix all of the leaks would exceed the worth of the vehicle. So an oil additive would be better then going up on the grade of oil?

[Richard Kirshy]

[quote=”mckrishes” post=193136]There is no burning of oil. Just multiple leaks. It is an old car with high miles. I just think that spending the money and time to fix all of the leaks would exceed the worth of the vehicle. So an oil additive would be better then going up on the grade of oil?[/quote]
An oils weight is determined by the rate of flow at a given ambient temperature. Basically, heavier oil (20-50) will be thicker at say 50deg F than light oil (10-30) the trade off is better high temp protection. What it boils down to is depending on ambient air temperature you should choose an oil that meets your needs.
MFG recommendations are usually best followed.
As I said, there are no promises when using additives..
I have a 2002 Nissan, that the rear main seal had a annoying leak.
Nothing extreme, just enough to tick me off.
I am in no mood to pull a transmission and transfer case or remove the engine.
I had heard that Marvel Mystery Oil might work to soften up engine seals.
So I figured what’s the worse that could happen….
Added it as recommended at the next oil change and continued to do so for the last year.
The leakage has gotten much less, but still remains.
So I can’t complain, your results may vary though.

[mckrishes]

Thanks for the information. When I owned my 2002 Odyssey many years ago, the engine oil called for 5w-30. I always used high mileage synthetic oil and had almost zero problems. Any oil leaks were very minor. Hardly noticeable. I purchased my 2007 Odyssey and used the recommended 5w-20. I used high mileage synthetic and since then I’ve had some pretty bad oil leaks. I’ve done some research and it appears that my older odyssey and my newer odyssey have use the same J35 engine. Both are SOHC Vtech engines. And my engine does not have the VCM (Variable Cylinder Management system). So I think I may try a 5w-30 or 10w-30 high mileage oil (The 2000 odyssey uses the same engine but recommends 5w-30 or 10w-30). I am debating on whether or not to use full synthetic or semi-synthetic. I’ll see how that does and then consider using stop leak. I will probably start with 5w-30 because it’s been pretty cold in my area. I’ll report back with the results.

[Richard Kirshy]

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Rahul Jones]

My 2005 Kia Sorento with 2.4 Ltr runs best with the heavier 20W-50 grade oil especially considering that I live in hottest planet in the Middle East. When I bought my Sorento used it had an oil consumption issue. Then I heard about Vavoline MaxLife I looked for 20W-50 grade unfortunately I only found 10W-40 but I anyways tried it and the oil went from 1 ltr every 1000KMs to 1ltr every 3500-4000KMs. It didn’t completely solve the issue but it reduced to a much reasonable rate. Then in the end I had to rebuild the whole engine as it wouldn’t pass the emissions test because of oil smoke. The oil is definitely worth a try.

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