Too easy on oil?

[daves87rs]

Hmmm...this surprised me a little bit. I check the oil in my Cobalt (running M1), and the oil in it is not black, but a dark amber in color.

Normally, it is dark. It amazes me even more that this is the first syn change it had, after running QS dino for a while. I expected a bit more "cleaning", ie pretty nasty looking oil. The car has about 3700 on it now (42% OLM), with mostly city driving.


Now I know Ecotecs are easy on oil, but is this normal? At this rate I could go awhile....... My wife's car is harder on M1 than this....

 

[ThirdeYe]

At 5,000 miles, mine's still barely dark. But Honda engines are known to be easy on oil as well. I'd say it's normal.

 

[buster]

Color doesn't mean anything. Mobil 1 gets dark in the Accord and I found it to mean nothing. Same with other cars. Oil was black @ 11k mils but had a Tbn of 4.

 

[daves87rs]

Originally Posted By: buster
Color doesn't mean anything. Mobil 1 gets dark in the Accord and I found it to mean nothing. Same with other cars. Oil was black @ 11k mils but had a Tbn of 4.



Dark oil does the job too..(means it's doing it's job)

I'm debating if I should do a UOA on this oil....


At this point it looks like 2 changes a year on synthetics.

 

[chet2]

the oil in my old sunfire never turned black of course i changed it every 6k or so...i just bought a G5 and i am going to put the 0-30 M1 in it...1500 miles on odometer and OLM says 85% oil life left so at that rate it is good for close to 10k but i am going to change it soon

 

[daves87rs]

Originally Posted By: chet2
the oil in my old sunfire never turned black of course i changed it every 6k or so...i just bought a G5 and i am going to put the 0-30 M1 in it...1500 miles on odometer and OLM says 85% oil life left so at that rate it is good for close to 10k but i am going to change it soon



Hmmm...the wife's Ecotec (Cavalier) always is pretty dark when I change it. Then again,she is not easy on the car either ( a good reason for M1 in her car). And her car still runs great. So I'm not worried anyways.


If M1 does this well, PP should be even more interesting. (which is my next small stash). I've already decided I'm going to just leave the oil in there till fall (current M1), unless it goes to 7k.

 

[tig1]

With my 10,000 mile OCIs my oil stays a drak amber colar even with the mileage that's on the Merc.

 

[Gary Allan]

Mine gets cleaner.

Here's mine after 10k. I had to drain it then, otherwise it would be impossible to check.

 

[chevrofreak]

Gary, the Auto RX clean phase oil that I filtered and reused in my dads car (there was a lot of makeup oil, so the per quart average miles on the oil was about 900) was very dark when it was poured in, and it actually started to get lighter in color after a couple thousand miles. It concerned me quite a bit, because that color had to be going somewhere, and it probably wasn't the oil filter. I was afraid that it was leaving deposits inside the engine, so I changed it pretty early.

 

[daves87rs]

Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
Mine gets cleaner.

Here's mine after 10k. I had to drain it then, otherwise it would be impossible to check.

 

[typ901]

Originally Posted By: buster
Color doesn't mean anything. Mobil 1 gets dark in the Accord and I found it to mean nothing. Same with other cars. Oil was black @ 11k mils but had a Tbn of 4.


My '00 Accord v6 turns the oil black after 5-7k when i change it. Always has, and runs really well with 131k on the clock. I have never owned a car that did not.