Same oil completely different color?

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Jul 2, 2020
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This isn't about a specific oil or brand but has anybody come across the same oil from the same brand to be two different colors? I was changing the oil on my car and needed two jugs and one is a different color and odour to the other. One is very Pale with a weird hue to it (Blue / green hue) and has little to no odor and the other is darker and smells much stronger. Had both been the same I wouldn't have noticed. Normally when I've used this oil it has always looked like the darker one.

Would you be concerned?

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I've never seen that before. The only thought that comes to mind is could someone have used the darker oil and did an oil change and put their used drained out oil change oil back in the carton and returned it to the store, without regard to other customers, and then you ended up buying it.
 
I've never seen that before. The only thought that comes to mind is could someone have used the darker oil and did an oil change and put their used drained out oil change oil back in the carton and returned it to the store, without regard to other customers, and then you ended up buying it.
I did have that thought but I've bought the same oil plenty of times and it always is the darker color, the pale one seems to be the odd one out 🤷‍♂️.
 
That is unique. The lighter jar doesn't even look like oil.

I wouldn't use it personally.

I've never seen that before. The only thought that comes to mind is could someone have used the darker oil and did an oil change and put their used drained out oil change oil back in the carton and returned it to the store, without regard to other customers, and then you ended up buying it.
I would think that it would be much darker. The kind of person willing to do that isn't the kind of person that would be on top of their maintenance, IMO.
 
That is unique. The lighter jar doesn't even look like oil.

I wouldn't use it personally.


I would think that it would be much darker. The kind of person willing to do that isn't the kind of person that would be on top of their maintenance, IMO.
That color is what oil looks like when you do short oil change intervals. In my vehicles, after about 3k miles, the oil appears light to medium brown, kind of the same color as the oil in the photo above. But the OP says his oil is usually that color for that brand when purchased new, so it's the lighter oil that is worrisome in this case.

I know this is not scientific, but if it were me, I would wet my fingers with the dark oil on my right hand and the light oil on my left hand,
and see if the viscosity and slipperness of the 2 oils seems identical. Not scientific, but if the light oil feels like water with no lubricity, I wouldn't use it.
 
I've used a synthetic gear oil that was nearly clear like one of your samples. Is it the case that "ordinary" amber looking oil contains a dye and the clearer oil doesn't. We are so used to the normal oil colour that we don't trust anything else. At a guess I would say the old group 1 oils were amber so that's what we got used to and what we expect our modern oils to look like.
 
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If the oil was sitting on the shelf for a while, you can shake the bottles and re-sample. Otherwise, I would contact the manufacturer.
 
I'd contact the company, get a contact person and email him/her those pictures, with the lot # off both jugs. Let them sort it out.
 
Slight color differences are absolutely no big deal.

The blue green is like they were making a different product line right before and did not flush the lines. Maybe a TWC or some 2 -stroke oil or something.

Good advice to contact company.

Probably wouldn't kill your engine, but still in a Ferrari? No.
 
This isn't about a specific oil or brand but has anybody come across the same oil from the same brand to be two different colors? I was changing the oil on my car and needed two jugs and one is a different color and odour to the other. One is very Pale with a weird hue to it (Blue / green hue) and has little to no odor and the other is darker and smells much stronger. Had both been the same I wouldn't have noticed. Normally when I've used this oil it has always looked like the darker one.

Would you be concerned?

View attachment 158913

View attachment 158914
Is that Bud Light on the left?👀😑
 
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