How old is too old for oil

[Sodo]

Or mix it in with a bunch of proper oil. Use it for topping up. No matter what, its always better than the oil you just drained out.

 

[Capricious]

I consider an oil too old when the spec it was made for does not meet the spec I need. i.e. I wouldn't put a CG diesel oil in a motor that required a CJ-4. In that case, the CG oil is too old. Come to think of it, I have a quart of Quaker State oil in the old metal can, unopened, sitting on a shelf in the shop. I know it is from circa mid 1970's. I ought to open it up and send a sample in to my oil sample lab and see if it is still good. My bet, it is. Won't get put in anything I run now anyway. Plastic containers, it might be another story.

Don't open them. They are more valuable to a collector un-opened.

I ain't kidding. People collect this stuff.

I collect (or used to, at least) old outboard motors, and old sealed cans of 2-cycle oil have some value.

 

[TomSeller]

Don't open them. They are more valuable to a collector un-opened.

I ain't kidding. People collect this stuff.

I collect (or used to, at least) old outboard motors, and old sealed cans of 2-cycle oil have some value.

Right. Oil is backwards compatible, not forward compatible.

 

[Sodo]

True too, but most people with some old bottles & partial cans are not setting up to violate API ratings from here on out. They just wanna get sensible use of a valuable resource rather than discard it, or pollute with it. Nobody's planning to run old oil at full strength in a race engine being operated within an inch of its life.

Outdated oil thats clean is the perfect "top up" oil because its got to be better than the used oil thats in your engine now (and will continue to lubricate until the next oil change).

 

[big bubba]

"However, the question remains as to whether Brontosaurus oil is better than Tyrannosaurus oil or if a blend is all you need." tom seller
hey good one! imagine this sort of discussion will be around almost as long as the dinosaurs that made them.