Changing oil yesterday in the fine-tuned, watch like precision Ford Duratec engine using a 5qt jug of ESP 0W-30, which left it one quart shy of a full deck. I had a quart of ESP 0W-20 I had purchased for this purpose, so dumped it into the funnel, only to discover to my dismay it has a very distinct green color!!! Did a search here and found nothing regarding this, although @ kaschn undoubtedly has this already indexed. At any rate, is there any reason to be worried?
ESP oils
- Thread starter srfdude
- Start date
Short answer - nothing wrong with oil, VW 508 oils are colored that way on purpose.
No Worries, well this Green Color thing has me thinking about Green Lantern! Seriously, the Green Color tells me you are using a superior oil, or something else. Here is a thought, Mobil is doing this because there workers are not as smart as Bitogers and they do not want the 0W-20 ESP mistaken for Bitog's favorite now which is ESP 0W-30. I think ESP 5W-30 is better, but that will be discussed in another Thread.
Something jumped into my head, there was an oil that was from Castrol that was 0W-30, did it have an interesting color?
Yes, the original German Castrol 0W-30 was green. Different reason than for any spec though. It was green because it was made by elves.
I used 0w-20 ESP in daughter's new RAV4 and when she asked about the oil color I said it had to match car's color .... 
An elf (pl.: elves) is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology, being mentioned in the Icelandic Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda.
Thank you bluesubie, you have let out the secret about German Castrol 0W-30, now I know why this oil is still talked about and why many members that were around back in the early to mid 2000's wish it were still around.
edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
Same additive package and base stocks.
It's fine, you just have 0W-28 in the sump now 
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Funny thing, the green color comes from a BLUE dye (blue plus amber oil makes green) that is part of the requirement to meet VW508.00 approval. This was done because VWAG didn't want careless techs dumping this oil into vehicles calling for 502/504, since this oil spec is not backward compatible for the others and could cause engine damage. They figured the green color could help prevent this from happening. The chemical tracer element is vanadium (or zirconium?) and it will supposedly show in an oil analysis if needed to support a warranty claim, although there aren't any/many documented cases that have used this method that I know of. The green coloration is hard to detect after a couple thousand miles of use.
.Funny thing, the green color comes from a BLUE dye (blue plus amber oil makes green) that is part of the requirement to meet VW508.00 approval. This was done because VWAG didn't want careless techs dumping this oil into vehicles calling for 502/504, since this oil spec is not backward compatible for the others and could cause engine damage. They figured the green color could help prevent this from happening. The chemical tracer element is vanadium (or zirconium?) and it will supposedly show in an oil analysis if needed to support a warranty claim, although there aren't any/many documented cases that have used this method that I know of. The green coloration is hard to detect after a couple thousand miles of use.
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Ahh, the good ole days......
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