1 Quart Oil Storage

I've been dealing with a 6qt engine since 2014 and have had no issues using an opened jug of oil. close the cap tight and give the jug a squeeze. It is pretty tight. Not perfectly sealed but pretty tight for moist air to get back in there. Think of the moisture your oil gets exposed to during a 4-6 month run in a rainy location. HUGE compared to sitting in a bottle in a unairconditioned garage. If its an attached garage, its semi airconditioned. if you are really paranoid, bring it inside so the temperature swings are very low and the AC keeps the humidity down.

I'm in Texas with super hot summers and my stash is in a detached garage. 120 degrees in august is not unheard of. I'll looks the same from the first quart to the last.


An alternative that takes some math is to rotate the oil. buy two 5qt. pour 5 jug then 1 qt from the second. Then next OCI pour the 4 qts (oldest) first then 2 qt new. and so on. That way your OLD oil is never more than 2 oci old. Not necessary since I have used a open jug 2 years old with not degradation of the oil but if it makes you feel better. there you go.
 
My motor requires 6 quarts of oil an my dilemma is that the 5 quart jug will be on sale but that extra quart never is so I pay full price for it an there goes my savings. I could by two 5 quart jugs an store the other jug that has 4 quarts left but I don’t like to do that since I’ve unsealed the jug. Just wondering if anyone has come up with a 1 quart container that seals really well to store unused oil from a 5 quart jug
I would find an oil I like in one of the 6 Qt. boxes that seem to be everywhere. Sam's puts Mobil1 on sale; $30 for 6 Qts.
 
The 6 qt boxes are ideal but I buy 5 qt jugs and use the leftover for top-off, save for the next change or use it in the mower.

The single quarts are way too expensive for what you get so I'd rather pay more and just buy another container, in most cases for the same money you're getting at least 1-1.5 qts of more oil.
 
Just came back to this thread and had the greatest laugh reading some of the comments and realizing my initial post was kinda silly. So many better things we can stress out over these days. I guess are vehicles are a hideaway from the real world
 
Just came back to this thread and had the greatest laugh reading some of the comments and realizing my initial post was kinda silly. So many better things we can stress out over these days. I guess are vehicles are a hideaway from the real world
LOL the comments in this thread are entertaining! Admittedly though, I go through the same dilemma with the 5w30 for my Cad (takes 6 qts). My approach is to just store the remaining 4 qts until the next OC. An alternative is to just buy another car that takes 4 qts of the same oil. :)
 
I feel fortunate. I use 5w30 in both my vehicles. Two jugs will do an oil change on them both. 6 qts. on one and 3.25 qts. on the other. I keep the extra bit around to add to the next round of oil changes. I pour that into the 1 qt. container I keep around for such a purpose.
 
Since retiring I am only putting about 5000 miles a year on my Mazda CX 5. That means once a year oil changes. The engine takes 5.5 quarts. I don't really want to buy an extra 5 quart jug and take years to consume a little at a time to get that extra half quart.
So what I do is look for sales on a high quality 5W-30 synthetic oil in quart bottles and buy one or two. It doesn't matter if my engine gets 5 quarts of Mobil 1 EP and a half quart of Castrol Magnatech, Edge, Valvoline, etc. or something similar as long as it is all the same weight, full synthetic and the latest GF6 rating.

Another reason for this is by the time I consumed another 5 quart jug at a half quart at a time, I'd probably be two more generations of GF ratings down the road.
 
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It saves money to buy 2 five qt jugs. If you don't like saving money, then buy individual quarts.

It's not hard math or hard to do this. If your vehicle takes 6 qts, you used 5+1 and store 4 qts, sealed and then used with the new 5 qts jug on the next OCI. Then you're left with a newer jug with 3 qts. when you used the old 4 + 2 from the new jug. Those 3 qts get sealed and stored for the next OCI, using 3 old + 3 new, and so forth. And your "old" oil never sits for longer than 1 OCI, which is somewhere in the 3-12 months interval if you're doing regular OCs.

Savings are small, but they do exist. Probably the price of lunch wasted/saved every OCI. I don't like throwing money away, YMMV.
 
It's never been a huge issue for me, I always keep 1-3 topoff quarts in the car, then one of those topoff quarts gets used as quart 6 for the next oil change. One kinda bad/good habit is I will tend to always use ST as my sixth quart or topoff, even when I was using Motorcraft or Valvoline, so that makes it somewhat of a frankenbrew every oil change (I never considered it being too bad before this site.)

I mean I guess there is the idea of storing oil but I'm just the type that likes to keep topoff oil in the car, so individual quarts are still useful for that, just because they're factory sealed and ideally won't leak in a trunk.

I mean, maybe your car uses 0 oil, etc, but stuff can happen and you want enough oil that can get you home or to a reasonably safe location.
 
Now for a real breakthrough on this one....an overlooked option...NO, an opportunity!

Buy "Simply Orange" orange juice in their tall, narrow-necked plastic bottles.
Their plastic is thicker than oil bottles which do sometimes leak when they're batted about on a shelf.
The S.O. bottles stand taller with a smaller footprint.
 
It's never been a huge issue for me, I always keep 1-3 topoff quarts in the car, then one of those topoff quarts gets used as quart 6 for the next oil change. One kinda bad/good habit is I will tend to always use ST as my sixth quart or topoff, even when I was using Motorcraft or Valvoline, so that makes it somewhat of a frankenbrew every oil change (I never considered it being too bad before this site.)

I mean I guess there is the idea of storing oil but I'm just the type that likes to keep topoff oil in the car, so individual quarts are still useful for that, just because they're factory sealed and ideally won't leak in a trunk.

I mean, maybe your car uses 0 oil, etc, but stuff can happen and you want enough oil that can get you home or to a reasonably safe location.
I do the same but I don't worry about leaking because I have my 10 quart oil drain pan in the truck and I keep my top off oil in it. But I can't remember the last time I had one leak!
 
My bmw uses 7 quarts.. imagine the planning i go thru

I go through the same thing with my Jaguar. It takes 6.9 quarts.
The good news is that the special formula Castrol Edge Professional EC5 0W-20 oil only comes in quart bottles.
The bad news is that they are about $15 per quart.
The even worse news is that oil is only available through Jaguar/Land Rover dealers and not from any online sellers. And not only that, but many dealers don't even carry it in their parts departments, telling me that they only have it in bulk to do oil changes in their service departments. The only dealers who stock the oil in quart bottles are anywhere from a 90 to 200 mile round trip away.
 
I have not had the car in for service yet. The will do free oil changes under warranty every 16,000 miles or once a year.
I'm not all that comfortable with that kind of OCI so I bought a Mityvac and OEM filter and plan on doing the first oil change myself at around 2500 miles or so.

It's funny, a dealer I contacted who has the one quart bottles in stock told me he has over 300 available when I asked if they had seven quarts in stock so I can do an oil change. When I take it in for a dealer change I'll see if they have some 55 gallon barrels of Castrol EC5 0W-20 in their service bays. The Land Rovers use the same oil so I'll bet they go through a lot of it. And I also assume that many if not most Jaguar and Land Rover owners aren't like those of us who frequent BITOG and don't do their own oil changes.
 
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