All too familiar. This is how my engine looked from the PO before I rebuilt it. It was like corn flakes baked in soot and used motor oil.

 

X3.

I remember a customer coming into the dealership with 80,000 miles on their ride. The service writer asked something along the lines of when was your last oil change. The response was that the oil had never been changed - they just added as needed.

 

Wal-Mart brand oil is actually good oil, its the same oil that the military uses, it is 100% recycled oil and is just as good as virgin oil.
The problem lies with using the wrong oil for the application, such as using a 5w-30 where a 10w-40 would be needed.
Oil brand matters less than the correct viscosity and oil change intervals.
You could use the cheapest motor oil you can find and as long as you changed it before it was worn out you would be fine.
That might mean changing it every 100 miles, but you could still get 200,000+ miles out of that engine.

 

Wal-Mart oil can vary depending on where you live. I had someone look up the super tech full synthetic. It could have been made by either Mobil or Specialty Oil Company (if I'm remembering correctly, and it could have changed by now) depending on the lot number or upc or something. When I worked in a garage, Specialty Oil brought us our bulk "super flo" or whatever oil. It was Quaker state. Both brands I know, but both brands with completely different reputations.

 

Agreed, short trips and long time before oil changes usually does just this. water in oil breaks down oil then once in a blue moon they hit a long trip and it starts cracking the oil. lots of low mileage short trips in humid places cause just this.

The only other time I saw something that bad was truly creamy sludge, the guys used pennzoil or what ever had ASH in it. and old Charger RT with a 440. I change the oil dumped tranny fluid in it an dlet her idle for an hour and it came cleaned it all out.

 

Lol... My dad would add oil to his cars engines as needed.
His logic was that after he added 6 qts of oil, he had changed the oil.
I remember one vacation we took, we ended up getting towed because
the engine threw a connecting rod...
My father went on to develop the trans atlantic fiber optic cable system..
go figure...
I've only seen one Disco 1 engine that looked worse than any of my fathers engines.. It didn't make it either

 

I recall seeing a post on a web site about a car that the owner kept topping up the oil. Engine failure. Oil normal on dip stick. Opened oil drain and nothing came out.... removed oil pan and found a hollowed out place in the pan full of sludge, where the dipstick went. So engine really had about 1 quart of oil or less in it. Spike is right about changing it early and often.

 

We had a Cummin's engine at work start burning oil at a very increased rate a few years ago, it started right at peak, added a gal of Lucas oil stabilizer crap and the oil burning stopped.
The engine made it the next 5 weeks before it finally gave out, when the mechanics opened it up there was nothing but this black thick molasses stuff stuck to everything, it was the Lucas crap, it stopped the oil burning by plugging things up.
That engine had about 250k on it, it was replaced with a used school bus engine.

 

Those bluebird school busses can be a good deal. Sometimes you can pick up the entire bus for less than $2000, and the engine alone is worth that to a dodge guy that needs another 5.9L

 

Exactly, except the Dodge part, this was for a P-1000 step van, it was a International engine that went back into it.
The boss did not buy the whole bus, just the engine, and it is gutless, wont get out of its own way. lol
Luckily its one of the spares and does not get used much anymore.