Noisy Engine: At the Dealership until Tuesday

[Stoge]

Wife's CX-7 has been noisy at start-up. Lasts about 1 second & sounds like an engine running without oil pressure.

So we take it in for an oil change to see if that would correct the problem. They heard the noise & wanted to keep the car for inspection. They called me today and said there was a sludge build-up under the variable valve timing cam. They did check to see that we have been changing oil regularly according to the owner's manual. Service manager told me that on CX-7, MS3, & MS6, its pretty important to change oil at 3,000 miles instead of the manual recommendations. He cited higher heat in the head from being turbocharged as the cause of the problem.

I'm starting to think there was an oversight in the owner's manual.

Good news is that it is completely covered under the powertrain warranty. We bought the car brand new and it now has 37,500 miles on it.

 

[offset_98]

I do every 5,000 miles but run Mobile 1 synthetic. 23k, no problems.

 

[my3needsaname]

I change my oil every 3,000 miles, why worry about engine sludge?
*sludge falls on head*
Narrator: Castrol Synthetic........
I don't care, I use Mobil1. Still got a noisy ass engine that does weird things and I've got 4800 miles on it. (1800 since first oil change to full synthetic)

 

[Stoge]

Got the car back on Friday. The part came in earlier than expected. Sure enough, the VVT cam actuator TSB is the action taken.

Car is back to perfect now except for the rattle somewhere towards the rear of the car. I'm guessing its either her license tag or radio antenna.