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I just recently acquired a 2002 Civic LX. It’s definitely a beater, but seems to be pretty solid for what I paid for it. Here’s the basic deets and my question:

The odo reads 244k, BUT the guy I got it from told me the cluster was swapped and the car actually only has about 150k. Pretty skeptical, not too sure why the cluster would get swapped 🤷‍♂️ Any who, let’s assume it’s actually 244k.

The car starts immediately every time, idles smooth, drives smooth (engine wise, the front springs are cut so the ride quality is pretty shitty, but the engine sounds good and is consistent.)

It does leak some oil, but doesn’t seem to be BURNING any oil from what I can tell. I did notice that the valve cover bolt right next to the dipstick had the threaded part at the bottom snapped off, presumably from over tightening when the previous owner changed the valve cover gasket recently, so I’m thinking this could be the source of the leakage. Not too concerned, because like I said, doesn’t seem to be leaking too badly in the short time I’ve had it.

MY QUESTION:

I’ve been checking the oil every day to make sure it’s not low, and it hasn’t been so far. However, I noticed that the oil on the dipstick seemed super thin, so I took a whiff out of curiosity and it smells pretty strongly of gas. From what I’ve read, there’s a few potential causes, namely being driven mostly short distances, not giving the engine time to get to temp, or a faulty injector.

My plan is to change the oil (5w30 high mileage synthetic or should I go with a heavier weight because of the high mileage? I live in Wisconsin so it’s about to be colder than ****,) and dump some fuel injector cleaner in the tank to see if it clears it up. I’m wondering if anyone else has had a similar issue on this car in similar circumstances, and if there is any advice on other things to try if the injector cleaner doesn’t do the trick.

Like I mentioned, the car seems to run fantastic for a 1/4 million mile engine, but I’ve never had a vehicle with fuel in the oil before, so I was a bit concerned.

Thanks in advance!

 
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Have you done an oil change yet? After vehicles sit for a while, fuel can breach into the oil system down the cylinder walls. If you haven’t changed the oil, do that and keep an eye on it.

 
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5w20 not 5w30

 
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I haven’t changed it yet. When I got the car it was pretty low, so I topped it off with some 5w20 high mileage full synthetic. I’ve only had the car about 3 days, but I was planning on doing the oil this weekend. Also, from what I understand, the car wasn’t sitting before I got it, it was being driven quite a bit, 1 hour round trip highway commutes for the previous owner. I’m going to change the oil and dump the injector cleaner for good measure this weekend. If the fuel smell doesn’t go away though, do you have any other ideas on what it could be or other things to try?

 
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Ope that was a typo. Fairly sure that 5w30 wouldn’t hurt anything either way, but definitely was a typo lol my bad.