Nice one Frupi 
I have a similarly shocking story involving a friend's wife's Hyundai Lantra (twincam engine). They asked me to check it over as the engine was "making a loud clacking noise". I quickly determined there was no reading on the dipstick, and the oil filler capped off a black, smoky environment inside the engine. I asked David "when was the oil last changed?"
"Hey Raewyn," David replied, "when was your car last serviced?"
"I don't know," said Raewyn, "I thought you organised that".
It transpired that since buying the eight-year-old car four years and 50,000km before, no oil change had been done and the oil level not even checked.
The sump had less than a litre, so I drained it, put in three litres of a cheap oil plus an engine flush, and replaced the oil filter.
Even when run for a while, this didn't silence the multiple collapsed/stuck hydraulic lifters (valve tappets) - so I took the unprecedented step of spraying engine degreaser into the oil filler while the engine was running. I kept spraying until the noise stopped. That's the degreaser usually used for cleaning the outside of the engine - I reckoned it would work on the inside, too
Then I drained the four and a half litres of thin and dirty liquid before putting in fresh oil. The engine was still good when the car was sold three years later. I think we've both proved that an engine can run with pretty much any liquid in it, as long as it's not under load.
-Alex
I have a similarly shocking story involving a friend's wife's Hyundai Lantra (twincam engine). They asked me to check it over as the engine was "making a loud clacking noise". I quickly determined there was no reading on the dipstick, and the oil filler capped off a black, smoky environment inside the engine. I asked David "when was the oil last changed?""Hey Raewyn," David replied, "when was your car last serviced?"
"I don't know," said Raewyn, "I thought you organised that".
It transpired that since buying the eight-year-old car four years and 50,000km before, no oil change had been done and the oil level not even checked.
The sump had less than a litre, so I drained it, put in three litres of a cheap oil plus an engine flush, and replaced the oil filter.
Even when run for a while, this didn't silence the multiple collapsed/stuck hydraulic lifters (valve tappets) - so I took the unprecedented step of spraying engine degreaser into the oil filler while the engine was running. I kept spraying until the noise stopped. That's the degreaser usually used for cleaning the outside of the engine - I reckoned it would work on the inside, too
Then I drained the four and a half litres of thin and dirty liquid before putting in fresh oil. The engine was still good when the car was sold three years later. I think we've both proved that an engine can run with pretty much any liquid in it, as long as it's not under load.
-Alex
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