When I bought my 05 ram last January with 24k miles I went to get an oil change a few weeks after. They told me it was a few quarts low on oil and that they reccomended an oil flush for some crazy amount of money. I told them no becuase I only had so much money on me, so they just gave me a basic oil change with regular 5w-30. Ok, so I am about 1,000 over since my last oil change and I needed to add a quart of oil becuase I got held up at work and couldent get to the dealership in time. When I took the oil cap off I noticed under the cap was full of sludge. Is this really bad? What should I do? Get the flush?

 

You were a FEW quarts low? You didn't say which engine you have, but you either have 6 qts with the 4.7 or 7 qts with the 5.7, and in either case a few quarts low is about half the oil it should have! I'm not sure about the flush, it sounds like they were trying to pile things on. I've never gotten an oil system flush in any vehicle I've owned. You can probably accomplish the same thing by changing your oil more often than 3000 miles for a couple of times just to get anything out that might be in there.

 

Sorry its a 4.7 Thanks for the advice

 

Tan in color?

 

Every time I take my cap off it has water under it. From what I have read on forums it's normal. If this is what you experienced

 

Why, does it sound like your old truck?.....lol

Moisture under the cap means your engine hasn't got hot enough, long enough to burn all of the moisture away.

Sludge is from lack of oil changes generally. Pennzoil brand oil has teflon in it which tends to gum up and create sludge especially when you start to run behind on oil changes or low on oil. However, the sludge could be from constant cold start up where maybe the previous owner just went to and from the hardware store and didn't give the engine time to fully warm up and burn off all condensation in the crankcase.

As already stated, by doing several oil changes before 3,000 miles that will definately clean things up. If it was my truck, I would just sit back and relax until your next oil change. When your ready for your next oil change simply pour in an entire can of Seafoam just before you go get your oil change done(unless your oil change place is less than 10 minutes away) You want to let the Seafoam run in your engine while it's warm for atleast 15-20minutes to let it do it's thing. Then it will just get drained when they change your oil. Then when they change your oil have them pour 1/2qt of Marvel Mystery oil in when they do your oil change and run it like that your entire 3,000miles if you'd like. After that, you'll have perfectly clean oil. Or you can speed things up and do the seafoam right now, but you''ll have to do another oil change right after.

 

I have an 02 and last time I went for an oil change they asked me the same thing...I only had 20 something thousand miles on my truck at the time of the oil change so there was no point, the engine didn't have a sufficient amount of miles on it that would concern me about getting an engine flush. I think the flush is just to pull some more money out of your pocket unless you have a lot of miles on your truck and haven't done a flush before, IMO.

How many miles do you have on your truck right now?

 

You won't have to do an oil change right after the seafoam you can buy it at NAPA . Pour in 1/2 a can and drive it like you stole it. No need to drain the oil after, it will evaporate through the EGR valve, the other 1/2 can goes in the gas tank that's 1/4 full. It will clean out the fuel system as well. Read the can. I use it about every 2 months and only change the oil at 6000 miles, with synthetic, I change oil at 10000 mikes. Though I DON'T recommend it, my friend had his first oil change on his Toyota Corolla SR5 at 48000 miles.

 

Thanks guys!

 

I would recommend running Mobil Clean 5000 and changing the oil at 3000 miles after. That should clean it up pretty well.