- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
- Messages
- 2,848
All I ever read is...oil color doesn't mean anything.
Yet every time I see a car come in that has gone past what that car's oil change interval is supposed to be...or what that particular oil can handle...the oil looks black as night. So I think oil "color" is a term people are throwing around rather broadly.
For instance yesterday a car came in and the lady hadn't changed her oil in 10,000 miles (using conventional carquest 5w20). The car was a 2015 Kia Optima...15,000 miles. We did the first oil change to it at 5,000 miles in Septemeber. We did the next oil change to it yesterday at 15,000 miles. The oil was black, in fact after doing the oil change and checking the oil level I asked the techs...did you guys even change the oil? The oil on the dipstick looked terrible. They said yeah, you should have seen what came out of it. Then they showed me. Wow.
This was a little direct injection engine...low miles...basically a new car. Yet by going 5k miles past what that oil can handle, the oil appears to be black, dirty, nasty. And it still looks that way after doing an oil and filter change. And I see lots of oil changes - usually after a normal service interval oil looks pretty clear after that change.
So I think it's reasonable to correlate dirty oil to oil that is used up. At least that seems to be the correlation that I've witnessed with my own two eyes whenever I see cars go a bit too far on an oil that wasn't designed for it. I know an oil analysis would show you exactly what's going on, but doesn't common sense come into play? When the oil looks like it has so much soot in it that you can't see through it...and you know the person went too far on the oil change interval...aren't those two factors related? Doesn't "dirty oil" mean something? Anything? Or does everything have to be sent to Blackstone?
Yet every time I see a car come in that has gone past what that car's oil change interval is supposed to be...or what that particular oil can handle...the oil looks black as night. So I think oil "color" is a term people are throwing around rather broadly.
For instance yesterday a car came in and the lady hadn't changed her oil in 10,000 miles (using conventional carquest 5w20). The car was a 2015 Kia Optima...15,000 miles. We did the first oil change to it at 5,000 miles in Septemeber. We did the next oil change to it yesterday at 15,000 miles. The oil was black, in fact after doing the oil change and checking the oil level I asked the techs...did you guys even change the oil? The oil on the dipstick looked terrible. They said yeah, you should have seen what came out of it. Then they showed me. Wow.
This was a little direct injection engine...low miles...basically a new car. Yet by going 5k miles past what that oil can handle, the oil appears to be black, dirty, nasty. And it still looks that way after doing an oil and filter change. And I see lots of oil changes - usually after a normal service interval oil looks pretty clear after that change.
So I think it's reasonable to correlate dirty oil to oil that is used up. At least that seems to be the correlation that I've witnessed with my own two eyes whenever I see cars go a bit too far on an oil that wasn't designed for it. I know an oil analysis would show you exactly what's going on, but doesn't common sense come into play? When the oil looks like it has so much soot in it that you can't see through it...and you know the person went too far on the oil change interval...aren't those two factors related? Doesn't "dirty oil" mean something? Anything? Or does everything have to be sent to Blackstone?