Hey Ryan,

I remember awhile ago that you said you might get your oil sent off for analysis. Short question: where would you get this done, and how much would it cost?

Reason: I've been changing the oil on my girlfriend's 98 camry for some time now, and its been pretty good about oil, i.e., doesn't burn too much, comes out pretty consistant after 3000 miles. So she's going to Jacksonville this weekend, and thus I must check her car out before she goes. Oil barely even registers on the dipstick, so I add about 2 quarts to it. Anywho, I start bumming around on the internet looking for instructions on how to replace her power steering belt, and find a HUGE, I mean HUGE discussion on oil sludge buildup on 97-01 Camrys and similar toyota cars that use the same engine, where Toyota admits there is a problem and in some cases will replace the entire engine, but in most cases *tries* to blame the customer for improper care.

Most people on the Camry forums recommend switching to Mobil 1 synthetic to avoid the problem, then again, I think EVERYONE recommends doing that anyway. What amazes me is that the number of 97-01 Camrys on the road is a BIG number, so why haven't I heard of this before? I mean, that is a LOT of cars! I guess on one hand, it can't be THAT widespread, but 1% of the number of Camrys on the road is still whole lotta cars.

So I guess we might want to get the oil analyzed to see what's going on in there. When her father bought the car at around 60,000 miles, it had just had the engine replaced. Coincidence? Mabye. I know that every car has a chance to develop serious wear after 100,000 miles (hers has about 105), but what concerns me is that this sludge problem isnt caused by a lifetime of using some crap oil, its been happening to engines with only 20,000 miles on them, so its a relatively short timespan problem, therefore, I want to address this before I end up having to drive her around town (or even worse, teach her to drive a stick........shudders).

Who am I kidding? Her dad will probably just buy her a new car anyway.

Ok, done rambling. Time to enjoy the rest of my *sick* day