Can quality of fresh motor oil be judged by smell?

[contrarian]

As I recall he was of the opinion that full syn oils don't have much of an odour while the cheaper mineral stuff does. I think he may have been repeating something a sales rep told him. The only full syn I have personally used is M1 0w40 which has no odour that I can detect and led me to think there might be some truth in what he said.

I just wondered if this might be a rudimentary way of telling the difference between a decent semi and a poor one, given that some have next to no synthetic content while the best of them can have 30%. I see now that it's not relevant at all.

Thanks to all for replying.

 

[toneydoc]

Probably if it is black when it comes out of the bottle and looks and smells like used motor oil. In that case you should realize you have had your money taken and got a bad product.

If you spend money on a reputable name product in an unopened bottle, I doubt you can judge anything about quality. That is because the reputable company has spent money and time on research and will provide you with a quality product.

However, my test about quality has to do with feel. If it feels slippery on my fingers and is a little bit tacky, then it has to be good oil. And color matters only a little as some of my oil is blue in color out of the bottles.

Hope this helps

 

[kozanoglu]

Originally Posted By: donnyj08
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
Originally Posted By: kozanoglu
Taste testing is a must for ultimate quality check.
Yup, it's a part of the initiation of BITOG, once you've been here for 2 years or 2,000 posts, BITOG mails you a package with various oils and a BITOG shot glass. With those oils you have to take a shot of each to retain your membership.



Uh oh... I'm getting close to meeting the criteria.

 

[kozanoglu]

I have never used/seen an oil without some smell. I notice once a bottle is opened -even if you close it right after pouring some into the engine- and stored the smell changes.
My last oil change was with PUP 10W-30 and the smell was heavy, no floral notes.

 

[CarbonSteel]

While I do not think you can judge quality by smell, I will say that M1 smells very "plastic" to me. It smelled the same way back in the late 80's and early 90's when I was using it. Pennzoil Ultra has a similar smell. Maybe it is something that is unique to synthetics.

 

[Moondawg]

Back in the day, oh about 30+ years ago, I used to love the smell of Havolin 30w. When I did an oil change and opened each can I would take a big sniff. It was good stuff.