Does sealed oil deteriorate?

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I have had a few bikes over the years and some oils that I have bought are still in my garage. I can't believe that much goes wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that they do go "bad" to some degree?
 
Temperature swings would have the most effect but even that would be negligible.

It's oil. The stuff sat underground for millions of years and now we use it like the stuff is fresh batch.
 
Hold the bottle upside down and shake it vigorously. Then rotate it 360* over and over. Let it sit upside down for a while for the additive package to settle in the opposite direction.

I no long have out of spec oils in my inventory (just Mobil 1 0W-20 EP and 0W-40) ... and in the past, I've used the oldest oil in the oldest vehicle or mixed it with a higher rated oil to be used in an older vehicle.
 
All the same, oil makers do say their products have a finite shelf-life, even when stored properly. Pennzoil says 4 years, others say 5. Maybe this is being ultra-conservative, and maybe it's a classic "CYA" but it seems like good advice to me..
 
Originally Posted By: rdevans89
I have had a few bikes over the years and some oils that I have bought are still in my garage. I can't believe that much goes wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that they do go "bad" to some degree?


It has a five year shelf life when stored in a warm temp. The additives come out of solution over time. This is refined oil. not crude oil from the ground.
 
The consensus here, which includes a lot of members who've used and still use very old oil from their stashes is that the real shelf life of motor oil can be measured on a generational scale.
IOW, if the oil gets used sometime before your grandkids have their own children it'll be just fine.
I also don't see much additive fallout in unopened containers I've had for as long as ten years and change.
WRT formulation, current oils seem to be very well formulated as compared to those of thirty years ago, so I don't think that they'll become functionally obsolete even as BITOGERs in some foggy future thread debate the relative virtues of a thick oil grade, like 0W-16 over the new -10W-0s with the Aussies trumpeting the advantages of a super-thick grade like 0W-20 or even 0W-30.
 
Don't keep it for too long. Oil is getting better all the time and you might want to use the best possible oil. So, use up the old stuff and don't worry about it.
 
YES! I have one bottle of Valvoline (make is not inportant here) turboV 15w40 API SG from 90's...It was sealed before I opened it...and oil in that bottle is black....just like oil in diesel engine before OCI...

I think that you can use your stash of oil if it didn't change the colour...
 
Originally Posted By: Danh
All the same, oil makers do say their products have a finite shelf-life, even when stored properly. Pennzoil says 4 years, others say 5. Maybe this is being ultra-conservative, and maybe it's a classic "CYA" but it seems like good advice to me..


I emailed SOPUS and Exxon and both said 5 years if sealed and 1 year of opened.
 
Originally Posted By: Doog


I emailed SOPUS and Exxon and both said 5 years if sealed and 1 year of opened.


so basically no oils from kmart
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Originally Posted By: Rand
Originally Posted By: Doog


I emailed SOPUS and Exxon and both said 5 years if sealed and 1 year of opened.


so basically no oils from kmart
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I've never heard of oil going 'bad'. I have a few cans (yes, cans, not bottles) of sealed Texaco oil from the 1950s in the garage, and if I opened them, I bet they'd be in a condition similar to that they were delivered in.

The key is that older oils might not be compatible with new cars. And new standards almost always supercede old standards (there are a few exceptions to this, particularly where the ZDDP additive is useful).
 
Originally Posted By: Reddy45

It's oil. The stuff sat underground for millions of years and now we use it like the stuff is fresh batch.


True... oil sat underground so long its radioactivity has decay to a point where the US
Government has ruled that liquor must test radioactive to be legal... confused read on...


Quote Dr.Muller
Liquor and wine in the United States must be radioactive to be
legal. When tested, drinking alcohol is required to have at least 400
radioactive decays per minute for each 750 milliliters.

The U.S. government has decided that "alcohol for human consumption
must be made from "natural" materials, such as grains, grapes, or
fruit. That regulation rules out alcohol made from petroleum. Such
alcohol is chemically identical to natural alcohol and just as
safe-there's no difference in taste-so why this rule? The reasons have
to do with history-keeping alcohol more expensive (a goal of the
anti-alcohol lobby) and minimizing competition (a goal of the liquor
lobby). If there's no chemical difference, how can we tell natural
alcohol apart from alcohol made from petroleum? The U.S. Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, charged with enforcing the
natural-alcohol rule, has only one reliable test: check for
radioactivity. Natural alcohol gets its carbon from plants; the plants
got the carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide. As explained on page
10, atmospheric carbon dioxide is radioactive because of the continued
bombardment of cosmic rays-particles coming from space-that collide
with nitrogen molecules and turn it into C-14, radiocarbon. Only one
atom in a trillion carbons in the atmosphere is radiocarbon, but
that's enough to be detectable. (I invented what is currently the most
sensitive way to detect C-14, called "accelerator mass spectrometry.")
Petroleum was also made from atmospheric carbon, but it was buried
hundreds of millions of years ago, isolated from the radioactive
atmosphere. Radiocarbon has a half-life of about 5,700 years, and
after 100 million years, there is nary an atom of C-14 left. So lack
of radioactivity in alcohol is a dead giveaway that it's made from
petroleum and not "natural" materials. True, a bootlegger could get
some C-14 and add it to illegal liquor. But that's beyond the skill
set of most bootleggers
 
I bought some Maxima oil from EBay. Not sure how old it was but first qt a watery substance came out first followed by thick sludge . Shook the next qt for about 2 minutes. Same result.
 
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