Oil filter is doing its job.... FULL of sludge

[stoutlogic]

Holy Sh*t. Are you missing a air filter and driving in a dust storm? Mice eat your air filter?

If that was me Id do 3 quick oil and filter changes. For $60 or so you could clean the majority of this mess. The first two of the three changes Id substitute one quart MMO. First change Id run dino oil for 50 to 100 miles or so. Second change, MMO with dino oil for 400 to 500 miles. Third and last change back to Mobile 1, no MMO.

Drive gently until your sure the engine internals are clean. MMO will do a nice gentle cleaning. Changing you oil quickly is cheap insurance. Hell you may want to do 4 quick changes. 5 quarts 5w 30 on amazon is like $15, add a $6 filter and its cheap piece of mind.

I'm not sure what happened to your poor engine. Frankly I've never seen anything near that bad unless it was terribly neglected. Not saying you neglected it Its just bizarre.

Good Luck. Report back.

[yanga001]

Reviving this thread as I had a similar occurrence. Due to a series of tool misplacements and time leaks I was not able to do my oil change at 10k km but instead at 13k km. I have been using pennzoil ultra platinum 5W30 for the last few oil changes and have noticed no issues. I found a fair amount of sludge in the oil filter housing and filter itself. I would not say the oil looked any more black than usual, but my car was used for a lot of cold starts and short distances. My last oil change was about 6 months ago and 13k km ago. Will monitor if this continues to be an issue.

I could see the sludge dripping out of the filter which was a little shocking. I have never had this happen on my previous P80 or current p2 platform in the previous oil changes. There is no sludge on the oil cap cover and the car drives smooth.

Will monitor the next oil change and see if it happens again.

260K KM
Oil change 5w30 penzoil ultra plat full syn
New Volvo Oil Filter
Rust proofed vehicle, formula 3000.

267 Power steering flush done

270K March 28 2024
Oil Change penzoil ultra platinum 5w30
Oil Filter Last one done at 260k KM 10k km change interval


August 15 2024
280k km
Pennzoil oil change ultra platinum 5w30
New volvo oil filter

Feb 1 2025
Pennzoil ultra plat 5w30
New MANN oil filter
293k km
A bit of sludge noticed

Resurrecting this thread as it may be relevant to what happened.

[Krons]

Reviving this thread as I had a similar occurrence. Due to a series of tool misplacements and time leaks I was not able to do my oil change at 10k km but instead at 13k km. I have been using pennzoil ultra platinum 5W30 for the last few oil changes and have noticed no issues. I found a fair amount of sludge in the oil filter housing and filter itself. I would not say the oil looked any more black than usual, but my car was used for a lot of cold starts and short distances. My last oil change was about 6 months ago and 13k km ago. Will monitor if this continues to be an issue.

I could see the sludge dripping out of the filter which was a little shocking. I have never had this happen on my previous P80 or current p2 platform in the previous oil changes. There is no sludge on the oil cap cover and the car drives smooth.

Will monitor the next oil change and see if it happens again.

260K KM
Oil change 5w30 penzoil ultra plat full syn
New Volvo Oil Filter
Rust proofed vehicle, formula 3000.

267 Power steering flush done

270K March 28 2024
Oil Change penzoil ultra platinum 5w30
Oil Filter Last one done at 260k KM 10k km change interval


August 15 2024
280k km
Pennzoil oil change ultra platinum 5w30
New volvo oil filter

Feb 1 2025
Pennzoil ultra plat 5w30
New MANN oil filter
293k km
A bit of sludge noticed

Resurrecting this thread as it may be relevant to what happened.

Photos?

I’ve de-sludged a couple 2.5Ts now and never fully clogged the filter like the original poster. My usual process is 16oz of Marvel Mystery Oil and 2000 mile changes with inexpensive Walmart SuperTech Synthetic. Really turns oil black but never got an oil filter ‘full’. After a couple of these oil doesn’t blacken too quick without the MMO and name brand synthetic.

I wonder if some of these cases could be where larger amounts of carbon loosen all at once.

[yanga001]

Forgot to capture them in my excitement but i was wondering if that was what happened. The engine has always been pretty clean compared to others I have seen. Under microscope it looked like carbon deposits exclusively so no copper or bearing materials.

It was maybe 10% full and there was a good amount at the base of the filter.

The next oil change will really tell me the outcome.

[DavidE7]

My oil filter looked like the two pictures from the original poster after 6,150 miles from the prior oil change on my 2007 S60 2.5T with 264,000 miles. I had a low oil pressure warning on a particularly cold day of 5*F in Michigan. The exhaust VVT solenoid also threw a code. I drained the oil and found the filter to be caked with junk exactly like the original pictures. I use Quaker State Full Synthetic 5W30 and Mann filters. Low oil pressure is enough of a concern that I pulled the oil pan to inspect the oil pickup screen. It had about 25% coverage of the pickup screen with very small burnt oil chunks. The big thing that I found was an improperly installed o-ring from the original engine build. (Oil pressure on the inside of the oil passage should be pressing the o-ring outward. Having a pinch on the inside diameter of the o-ring is an installation fault.)

I cleaned the oil pickup and oil pan with an ultrasonic cleaner, replaced all of the o-rings using an oil pan gasket kit from FCP (https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/volvo- ... r-30750783), installed new oil cooler seals (https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/volvo- ... z-30637339), used anaerobic sealant from a local parts store, and now everything is back to normal. I believe that the kinked o-ring allowed for slightly reduced oil pressure and reduced oil flow which caused the oil to be overheated inside the turbo and bearings. I didn't do anything with the VVT solenoid because that code hasn't returned. I wouldn't be surprised if the small mesh filter in the VVT gasket has some oil gunk.

I am worried that the piston rings are gunked up. Especially the oil rings at the bottom. The next step is to do a compression test and then soaking the upper pistons/combustion chambers with Barryman B-12 Chemtool in hopes of it loosening any carbon buildup around the piston rings.

[Krons]

My oil filter looked like the two pictures from the original poster after 6,150 miles from the prior oil change on my 2007 S60 2.5T with 264,000 miles. I had a low oil pressure warning on a particularly cold day of 5*F in Michigan. The exhaust VVT solenoid also threw a code. I drained the oil and found the filter to be caked with junk exactly like the original pictures. I use Quaker State Full Synthetic 5W30 and Mann filters. Low oil pressure is enough of a concern that I pulled the oil pan to inspect the oil pickup screen. It had about 25% coverage of the pickup screen with very small burnt oil chunks. The big thing that I found was an improperly installed o-ring from the original engine build. (Oil pressure on the inside of the oil passage should be pressing the o-ring outward. Having a pinch on the inside diameter of the o-ring is an installation fault.)
20250201_165436.jpg

I cleaned the oil pickup and oil pan with an ultrasonic cleaner, replaced all of the o-rings using an oil pan gasket kit from FCP (https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/volvo- ... r-30750783), installed new oil cooler seals (https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/volvo- ... z-30637339), used anaerobic sealant from a local parts store, and now everything is back to normal. I believe that the kinked o-ring allowed for slightly reduced oil pressure and reduced oil flow which caused the oil to be overheated inside the turbo and bearings. I didn't do anything with the VVT solenoid because that code hasn't returned. I wouldn't be surprised if the small mesh filter in the VVT gasket has some oil gunk.

I am worried that the piston rings are gunked up. Especially the oil rings at the bottom. The next step is to do a compression test and then soaking the upper pistons/combustion chambers with Barryman B-12 Chemtool in hopes of it loosening any carbon buildup around the piston rings.

I’ve de-sludged a couple 2.5Ts with 16oz of Marvel Mystery Oil and 2000 mile oil change intervals. Works slow enough to not clog the pickup tube screen but definitely gets good and black in 2000 miles.

I’ve never liked the idea of the LiquiMoly type engine cleaners where you dump them in while idling prior to dropping oil…too afraid big chunks too fast will clog things up.