How long is the shelf life of oil?

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Today I went to the local lube distibutor where I get my Chevron Supreme and bought a case of 5W-30 Chevron Supreme and a case of Chevron Dextron III ATF fluid.

The Case of Chevron Supreme was over a year old with the bottles having a date of 1/2004. The ATF bottles said 7/2003.

I'm assuming its safe to use both of these?

I'm not that thrilled to be getting oil this old but I guess I will probably keep it.

What is the safe shelf life of oil and ATF? Thanks.

Wayne
 
Try this on for size; I'm currently running the following in our Expedition:

3 qt's. Quaker State Semi-synthetic 10w30 API SH circa 1994

2 qt's. Quaker State Semi-synthetic 10w30 API SJ circa 1996

1 qt. Marvel Mystery Oil

This is for a 1500 mile "flush".

Hey, I got the SH & SJ oil for 20 cents/qt. I had to do something with it.
wink.gif
 
My former employer ran oil for 40+ years in machines without any meaningful degradation on the UOA's.

The stuff literally has sat for thousands if not millions of years underground. It likely won't go bad in your lifetime. Might become outspec'ed but not bad.
 
Go exchange it from say Wally's or Kragens.

I bought a case of Delo 400 15w40($0.59/qt) circa 12/03 from Kragens...wasn't ok with it so I went to Wally's. I paid for 12qts of moly-ized CI-4+ 1/05...then back to the car. Swapped said new Delo from the Wally's bag for the "aged" Delo and walked straight back to the CS for a return...

No sweat.
grin.gif
 
quote:
Originally posted by pitzel:
My former employer ran oil for 40+ years in machines without any meaningful degradation on the UOA's.
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pitzel - Are you again dragging out this same story in which you are referencing electrical transformer oils?

Transformer oils are formulated for duty as insulating oils and the additive packages are designed to protect the oil from oxidation & aging.

Not really an apples-to-oranges comparison when comparing to lubricating oils which are used in automotive applications.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Blue99:
pitzel - Are you again dragging out this same story in which you are referencing electrical transformer oils?

Transformer oils are formulated for duty as insulating oils and the additive packages are designed to protect the oil from oxidation & aging.

Not really an apples-to-oranges comparison when comparing to lubricating oils which are used in automotive applications.
Click to expand...
Ok, so what in an in-storage 'lubricating oil' is different from an in-service 'transformer oil'?

They both have oxidation/nitration concerns, both have some small degree of hydroscopic behaviour, both have TAN's and TBN's that can be measured. The UOA's on transformer oils are concerned primarily with things such as dissolved gases and TAN, but otherwise, the issues aren't all that different from lubricating oils, especially those just sitting on the shelf doing nothing. Dielectric strength is another factor that is useful on the transformer oil UOA's, but it is generally considered an overall quality assurance statistic that usually indicates an oil that is both free of water contamination and free of overly high amounts of dissolved gases.

Are you suggesting that additive package components in automotive lube oils have some degradation mechamism that is affected by shelf storage? If so, let's see the evidence.

[ March 16, 2005, 01:41 AM: Message edited by: pitzel ]
 
I have been told by an oil company and seen on the STP website that properly stored oil has an indefinite shelf life. Proper storage is roughly between about 40F and 65-70F. You don't want to store it in the garage.
 
There is so much anti-oxidant additive in motor oil and ATF that I cannot imagine any problem as long as the containers are sealed. The only issue is obsolete specifcations, and that is only if you are putting old stock in a new car.
 
quote:
Originally posted by TallPaul:
...Given the way zddp is going down I wish my stash were SJ.
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kinda makes me glad I snagged these last month:
-


I scored 25 qt's total SH & SJ.....used all the SH, now I'm down to 20 qt's of SJ.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jimbo:
There is so much anti-oxidant additive in motor oil and ATF that I cannot imagine any problem as long as the containers are sealed. The only issue is obsolete specifcations, and that is only if you are putting old stock in a new car.
Click to expand...
Given the way zddp is going down I wish my stash were SJ.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Patman:
On Shell's website they claim the shelf life is 5-10 years.
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Can you post a link? I only see the "4-5 years" stated on the Shell Rotella website.
 
????lly posted by kreativ:

quote:
Originally posted by Patman:
On Shell's website they claim the shelf life is 5-10 years.
Click to expand...
Can you post a link? I only see the "4-5 years" stated on the Shell Rotella website. [/QUOTE]

They must've updated it because that same site used to say 5-10 years. Perhaps they now want people with newer cars to be using oil that has come out more recently?
 
Would you guys think that full synthetic (PAO) motor oil would degrade less with time than dino due to "the more uniform size" of the man made molecules. How about 10w30 vs. 5w30 due to less
polymers used?
 
quote:
Originally posted by pbm:
Would you guys think that full synthetic (PAO) motor oil would degrade less with time than dino due to "the more uniform size" of the man made molecules. How about 10w30 vs. 5w30 due to less
polymers used?
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I think you could make a good case chemistry-wise for showing that oils with higher concentrations of esters are perhaps slightly less chemically stable than those without. Also esters tend to be more hydroscopic, which brings water contamination and aerobic bacteria growth into the picture moreso than with oils with lower levels.

The hydroscopic nature of the ester components could be one of the reasons Redline's motor oils, advertised as being formulated with high levels of polyolester components, tend to suffer higher levels of corrosive wear in-service.

But on the flipside, if you model oil oxidation as an Arrhenius-type process, 'synthetic' oils have superior oxidation resistance at elevated temperatures, a property that would denote a higher energy barrier insofar as the oxidation reaction's activation energy threshold. With a higher activation energy threshold, even at storage temperatures, the oil is less likely to oxidize than its counterpart that oxidizes more easily at high temperatures. Temperature merely determines the number of intermolecular colissions (along with boltzmann's constant), but not the required energy of those colissions for the reaction to take place.

Bottom line: contamination and specifications are the only issues you ought to be concerning yourself with.
 
quote:
Originally posted by pitzel:
Bottom line: contamination and specifications are the only issues you ought to be concerning yourself with.
Click to expand...
AMEN!


quote:
The hydroscopic nature of the ester components could be one of the reasons Redline's motor oils, advertised as being formulated with high levels of polyolester components, tend to suffer higher levels of corrosive wear in-service.
Click to expand...
I need you to walk me through this, sort of fill in the details of how it goes from A (hydroscopic nature of ester) to B (higher levels of corrosive wear).
 
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