Visually inspect oil?

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Howdy all,

First time poster.

I have a 2011 Nissan Altima 2.5L 26K miles - Mobil 1 Extended Performance
2002 Toyota Camry 2.4L 110K miles - regular oil (I don't know what brand - free oil changes at dealership.)
They both are using their recommended oils weights, I am very light on the accelerator and 75% city driving.

Should visual inspection of the oil from the dipstick be used as an indicator that it's time to change the oil?

Sorry if too much information.
smile.gif

Thanks in advance.
 
Originally Posted By: mystercamry

Should visual inspection of the oil from the dipstick be used as an indicator that it's time to change the oil?

Nope.

Welcome to BITOG.
 
If you put two drops from the dipstick on a white file card you will get an indication of how clean or unclean the oil is, but there are some parameters that cannot be directly visually inspected. To go significantly over the recommended OCI you may need used oil analysis. Amsoil does recommend considerably longer change intervals on their oils, but again I would do the file card blotter to see what it is looking like.
 
Oil turned dark in my VQ35 after 800 miles, but showed great UOAs. Not to mention my ATF was pitch black and came out great on a UOA.

So yea visually inspecting the oil mean absolutely nil
 
visual inspection of motor oil is absolutely meaningless for it cannot tell you things like TBN, fuel dilution, etc.

When in doubt, always consider using one of those oil labs for UOA analysis (in reference to some VOA values), that way, you can gauge your oil degradation and scale your oil change interval accordingly.

Q.
 
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