It depends on how bad the sludge is. If it is very thick and lots of it I would go through everything on the engine to clean it out. The old trick to clear out sludge was to run the engine until it was warm, then drop the oil out and refill with a 50/50 blend of oil and diesel fuel or ATF. Then run it a few minutes to circulate the mix, shut it off and let it soak. Start it back up, let it warm up and drain out the crud. Then drop the oil pan to clean it and the oil pump screen. Replace the filter and add oil, run it to flush out the rest and change the oil and filter again. However on a 2011 I am not sure I would do that unless it was a last attempt on a high mileage engine. With the tighter clearances and passages it would be easy to flush a chunk into the wrong place and cause oil starvation. Instead I would pull the rocker covers and manually remove as much as possible there and remove the pan and do the same. Then do oil and filter changes and add a half quart of ATF to the oil. Then change the oil in five hundred miles or so and run it. You could strip it all down, clean it all out and go from there but that is a lot of work that may not be needed.
Sunday, August 26th, 2018 AT 3:28 PM