I bought a 02 Saab 9-5 2.0t a few months ago. This morning it started a faint whining noise from cold. After doing some research on the net I came across the "sludge" issue. I phoned the previous owner to ask had he used synthetic oil in it, and he said that he had. Unforunately, he said that before he sold it he had dropped the sump and removed the oil pick-up strainer (as in, gone completely). What are the possible implications of this? As the engine can't be starved of oil from a blocked strainer, could impurities in the oil be collecting and clogging somewhere else (possibly a more sinister place)?
At the moment, there is no loss of power and it's driving perfectly. There's no warning lights on the dash. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
How does he mean "he removed the strainer"? I hope he just took out the mesh.
I suppose he must have done. If he took out the whole mesh and carrier, you would get no oil pick-up at all! Your oil filter could be clogged with all the big bits now. And they will have gone through the oil pump first. Not good.
Sorry, meant to say he removed the mesh. There's no oil light on so hopefully there's no damage to the pump. It's still driving perfectly, although going to have to get it sorted before I do any driving. Any ideas where I might get some replacement mesh?
The problem is that when the whine is due to the pickup strainer being blocked, at least the bits haven't got into other places. But what's odd is that you have to drop the sump to get at the strainer, at which point you normally clear out any bits. Either he didn't clear out the bits or perhaps the PCV pipes disintegrated very rapidly As sgould says, what's not known now is where the blockage is. I'd try using a generous dose of engine flush and drop the sump and clear out anything you can see.
A complete new pickup strainer (you can't get just the mesh) is part no 55557225 and retails at around £40 plus VAT, but you could probably get one from a breakers.
It might be a blocked oil filter and the whine is the bypass valve in it opening up. I'd change the oil filter and dump the oil immediately (just dump some semi in to save money and use it as an engine flush while you sort out getting the pickup replaced, you want to be doing this over the next few hundred miles ideally).