Antifreeze in oil-- 91 525i with 242,600 miles

[semiretired]

Sent my used oil to Blackstone for analysis.
Basically it all came back OK except for slightly elevated sodium levels indicating antifreeze. The amout was small (185 ppm--translates to 0.35%).

Anyway, I checked the block anad found no obvious leaks. I had the valve cover gasket replaced last summer. I'm *HOPING* that took care of the leak and the leak was fixed. I'm going to fulsh out the $5.98/quart Mobil 1 and few thousand miles early and put in German Castrol Syntec then run it for a few thousand and get the oil analyzed again.

[Jon K]

Valve cover gasket has no bearing on coolant being in your oil - the ONLY way coolant can enter your oil system is with a headgasket leak.

[BillionPa]

what oil did you have in there?

[semiretired]

what oil did you have in there?
Mobil 1 0W-40 is current oil

[billy]

Sent my used oil to Blackstone for analysis.
Basically it all came back OK except for slightly elevated sodium levels indicating antifreeze. The amout was small (185 ppm--translates to 0.35%).

Anyway, I checked the block anad found no obvious leaks. I had the valve cover gasket replaced last summer. I'm *HOPING* that took care of the leak and the leak was fixed. I'm going to fulsh out the $5.98/quart Mobil 1 and few thousand miles early and put in German Castrol Syntec then run it for a few thousand and get the oil analyzed again.

i think that having 0.35% of your oil containing sodium should be the least of your concerns when your engines done 242K Miles - refill it and get on with life

[winfred]

id keep the same oil you have been using (if you have been using the same oil for a while) and do another analysis on the next change and see if it's fairly stayble, if so no big deal if it starts spyking then the head gasket may be failing due to age, that low a percentage won't hurt anything

[BillionPa]

some M1 formulations are starting to use sodium sulfonate, but i dont think the 0W40 is one of them.

if you got your 0W40 oil from brand new bottles, that could be the case.

the Mobil Clean 5000 oil i was using showed up as something like 240ppm sodium.

[winfred]

that's why it's always a good idea to keep a sample of the oil you filled it with to send as a baseline for the test, that's how the diesel guys handle it


some M1 formulations are starting to use sodium sulfonate, but i dont think the 0W40 is one of them.

if you got your 0W40 oil from brand new bottles, that could be the case.

the Mobil Clean 5000 oil i was using showed up as something like 240ppm sodium.