I don't know about the rest of the BITOG crowd but when I have new oil I expect it to look new, meaning not black like it has been run a million hours and needs to be changed. I bought 3 quarts of Supertech 80-140 (dino cheap stuff) gear oil for an old tiller transmission and was very surprised when the new oil looked worse than the old stuff that came out. I know the color is not to be used when determining an oil's condition but compared to all other gear oils I have ever used the Walmart stuff is abyss black. I will not use this in anything again, ponying up the little extra coin for AAP house brand is worth it for me because the color is golden/honey new. I searched and did to see if this molasses dark matter was always the same and only found threads about the synthetic versions. I did not find anything about the conventional (dino) oil color.