ATP AT-205 additive for RMS leak?

[mtnbkr]

I normally don't consider "stop leak" additives and prefer to fix the problem, but the family truckster (2007 Honda Odyssey with 185k) has developed a RMS leak that is losing about half a quart of oil each month (up from half a quart every 5-6 months). The plan is to replace it soon, but I was hoping to get to the Summer before doing so. Half a quart per month is manageable, but is leaving a helluva stain on my driveway. It's also starting to smoke (oil burning off of exhaust pipe) when the van is put under strain (such as when we drove it deep into the SW VA mountains around XMas).

Enter ATP AT-205...

That additive has come up quite a bit on my investigative searches around RMS leaks and Honda's engine. Most of the reports (Bitog, YT, etc) have been favorable, with a very few indicating no improvement and and tiny number saying the problem got worse.

Does anyone here have any experience with it? Fixing the RMS is not in the cards, I'm not dumping $1500ish into this vehicle knowing it has, at absolute most, a year with us remaining. I mainly want to reduce the external symptoms for the remaining time it's with us. I don't care if it doesn't work, but I'm worried it could make the problem worse or trash the engine.

Chris

[Welder]

I'm naturally suspicious of products like this, and a quick read of the first 10 or 15 reviews of it on Amazon would cure me of any desires to give it a try. My guess is that if something like this were going to work, it would've needed to be put in the engine back when it was only weeping. If your leak has increased, you probably have permanent damage to the rear main seal already, and something like this probably won't do anything.

FWIW, when I had my Subaru with the head gasket leak, I parked over a big cooking pan for a couple years to catch the oil. Maybe you could do something similar until it's time to dump the van?

[mtnbkr]

I'm naturally suspicious of products like this, and a quick read of the first 10 or 15 reviews of it on Amazon would cure me of any desires to give it a try. My guess is that if something like this were going to work, it would've needed to be put in the engine back when it was only weeping. If your leak has increased, you probably have permanent damage to the rear main seal already, and something like this probably won't do anything.

FWIW, when I had my Subaru with the head gasket leak, I parked over a big cooking pan for a couple years to catch the oil. Maybe you could do something similar until it's time to dump the van?

To be honest, I put little to no faith in Amazon reviews. Most of the time the people reviewing are either paid or borderline idiots. But, the non-Amazon anecdotes are concerning enough to make me pause (though most of the negative ones are in the vein of "it did nothing").

I'm less concerned about the oil on the driveway (that's what pressure washers are for!) than the oil that gets on the exhaust and causes smoking. I'm not likely going to risk it unless someone here comes out and say they've used it, it works great, and so on.

Chris

[camel]

I think most of those products work by making the deal swell up. That would affect other seals in the engine. Might lead to more trouble. But I don’t know specifically anything about that product.

[mtnbkr]

I think most of those products work by making the deal swell up. That would affect other seals in the engine. Might lead to more trouble. But I don’t know specifically anything about that product.

If I understand correctly, this product works by softening the seals, allowing them to flow back into position or something? Dunno. I only "discovered" it when I was researching how big a job it is to replace the RMS. Someone commented that it fixed their problem, which led me to look for further reviews.

Chris

[Welder]

To be honest, I put little to no faith in Amazon reviews. Most of the time the people reviewing are either paid or borderline idiots. But, the non-Amazon anecdotes are concerning enough to make me pause (though most of the negative ones are in the vein of "it did nothing").

I'm less concerned about the oil on the driveway (that's what pressure washers are for!) than the oil that gets on the exhaust and causes smoking. I'm not likely going to risk it unless someone here comes out and say they've used it, it works great, and so on.

Chris

Yeah...like I said, in the first 10 or 15 Amazon reviews there's a couple people who lost transmissions whose shops said the seals had turned to jello (I'm paraphrasing from memory) which would be enough for me to say NOPE lol. Even though we're talking about ATF and seals vs engine oil and seals in your case. There was another guy who said his oil pickup screen clogged, but who knows the root cause of that. He said it was clogged from paint from the inside of the oil pan which I have *never* seen. As in, I've never seen painted internal engine components beyond a few paint dots for i.d., although I freely admit I haven't seen the inside of every manufacturers' engines.

But my main point is that there's that potential downside of ruining other seals in the engine, and then there's also a strong likelihood that your RMS is mechanically damaged if it's leaking that much. So I don't think there's any upside to trying it that's worth talking about. IMHO of course as someone who hasn't been employed as an auto mechanic for 20 years.

[mtnbkr]

Yeah...like I said, in the first 10 or 15 Amazon reviews there's a couple people who lost transmissions whose shops said the seals had turned to jello (I'm paraphrasing from memory) which would be enough for me to say NOPE lol. Even though we're talking about ATF and seals vs engine oil and seals in your case. There was another guy who said his oil pickup screen clogged, but who knows the root cause of that. He said it was clogged from paint from the inside of the oil pan which I have *never* seen. As in, I've never seen painted internal engine components beyond a few paint dots for i.d., although I freely admit I haven't seen the inside of every manufacturers' engines.

But my main point is that there's that potential downside of ruining other seals in the engine, and then there's also a strong likelihood that your RMS is mechanically damaged if it's leaking that much. So I don't think there's any upside to trying it that's worth talking about. IMHO of course as someone who hasn't been employed as an auto mechanic for 20 years.

The jello comments jive with my understanding of how it works, so maybe they used too much or had unfortunately incompatible seals? The paint comments confuse me as well as I've never seen an internally painted oil pan. The oil pan on our van is cast aluminum anyway and wouldn't be painted.

Doesn't matter though, we've decided to just bite the bullet and buy something else. With the price of the used vehicles of the sort we want, we may actually buy new as it's only a few thousand more than used. I'm not happy about the hole it will leave in my bank account, but if we buy new, then we can hopefully expect a decade or more of service. Until then we're going to park the van except for trips where we need the capacity and just use my hatchback (9yo) and suv (25yo!) as our daily drivers for the time being.

Chris

[mtnbkr]

Been poking around at the auto manufacturer sites and it looks like we can get what we want for $35k-$40k. With 20k down and a 5-6 year term on the balance (less if we jump on the Explorer offer of 0% for 5yrs or less), we can get a payment that doesn't require any budgetary adjustments. Getting "free money" from Ford makes payments a no-brainer.

We've looked at Kia (Sorento and Carnival), Hyundai (Santa Fe), Toyota (4Runner...barely), and Ford (Bronco and Explorer) so far. Need to check out Chevy and Mazda, and maybe Nissan. Luckily, having such older cars in our stable, our expectations tech and feature-wise are low, letting us shop at the "Base Model" level for the most part. But, if we were to get a 4Runner, I'd really want a more off-road capable option package as that could replace my '97 4Runner as my camping/hunting toy in 10-15 years when the $NEWCAR is retired from DD status. The other ones, minus the Bronco, are glorified minivans, which is fine as we drive a minivan today.

Chris

[SecondsCount]

Are you running synthetic oil in the Odyssey?

[mtnbkr]

Are you running synthetic oil in the Odyssey?

Yes, and have been since we bought it in 2010 when it had 34k miles on the odometer. Same brand and weight oil with changes every 5k-6k as per the maintenance minder.

Chris