Worst oil you have put in your car?

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Might be blasphemy here on BITOG but I know some of us have put less than ideal optimal oil in our cars.
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Here's my worst so far.
I got a new tractor last year and it recommends the first two oil changes be done at 50 hour intervals. Being a good BITOGer I put it Rotella T6 5W40 after I dumped the factory fill as it was just before winter.
Then come spring its time to change the tractor oil again and the cars too. I did the tractor first and watched 8L of synthetic oil with 50 hours on it drain into a semi clean bucket and thought it was a bit of a waste...
I ended up pumping 4L of the used tractor oil into the Neon. It was fairly black but after several months it seems to be doing the job in the Neon. I'm going to run it all winter and then we'll see if the car is still on the road. I might treat it with a jug of PYB!
I'm sure someone has done worse than though...
 
so you reused break-in oil from a tractor?

ow.
I wouldnt be worried about clean I'd not like the breakin chunks, sand whatever.

Worst thing I ever did was reuse an oil filter on a tracker.

the oil fell out in chunks from the drain pan. and I think the filter was welded on.

It was impossible to get off at the time being surrounded by cv axle, exhaust, and various radiator hoses etc.

The tracker was used for a paper route and had 12000miles on conventional and was 2qts low....

Next oil change I did 2k later and changed the filter too :\

shortly thereafter the new oil started dissolving all the crud on the gaskets making it leak 1qt/1000miles which I think actually helped the engine live to 228k miles when the rest of the vehicle was junk (165000 paper route miles)

Since it actually leaked and didnt just burn.. it got checked weekly and actually topped off. I provided a handy one month gallon jug for that ;p.
 
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I once put used oil from my F150 into the Aerostar, but it only had maybe 1000 miles on it. Wanted to go to a thicker grade in the F150 and couldn't wait.
 
Interesting... Not sure what would make it past the oil filter, but I'd think a good oil filter would filter out the large chunks pretty quick--then again, the tractor's oil filter likely did the same exact thing. No chunks should be in the oil, only possibly whatever casting flash was in the bottom of the oil pan.

Might change it on a short OCI though, in the Neon. 278Mm = 172kmiles, so that Neon isn't exactly new anymore. With that kind of miles it probably doesn't care.
 
Worst oil. As far as what,performance as per a uoa,noise,what are the parameters.
As far as noisy every engine I ever put mobil 1 into made more valvetrain noise than the oil it replaced. Now I doubt very much the noise equated to additional wear however I don't like noisy.
I put the mobil 1 v-twin 20w-50 into my Harley after I broke it in on pennzoil,immediately the top end made such a racket I though something was broken. I went to the shop and asked them to check it out. They agreed that something sounded broken.
So off come the rocker boxes for inspection,compression test etc. 250 bucks later they found nothing wrong.
I took the bike home,grabbed 3 quarts of rp 20w-50 automotive oil,drained the junk mobil 1,started the bike and BAM,whisper quiet top end.
Never again will I spend money on mobil 1
 
I'm pretty sure my introductory post here at BITOG had to do with mixing straight-30 engine oil with Lucas Oil Stabilizer to use as a gear lube for my old '95 Maxima's 5-speed manual transaxle -- which specced 75w-90 GL4. Not my proudest moment, but certainly worth a few yucks in retrospect...
 
It wasn't the tractor break-in oil from the factory, but for some reason they still do a second 50hr change interval and then go to 100hr intervals after that. I figured in the Neon I probably run more like 200hrs between oil changes so 50 hours in a understressed diesel shouldn't be too bad?
The Neon is rusting out now so it days are definitely numbered anyways. I would bet alot of money that it won't die of engine lubrication related causes. The rust will get it first!
 
I put 5w20 in a tired dodge 3.9 and the oil light kept coming on at idle.
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LOS on top of some SM valvoline in my 4x4 Chevy 4.3 WT. Peak SM 5w30 in the 05 RAV4. Actuall had some bad Kendall 5w30 once too.
Good suff: EXxon Superflo or FS was the low buck treat back then.
 
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Originally Posted By: eljefino
I put 5w20 in a tired dodge 3.9 and the oil light kept coming on at idle.
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It looks like the idle is set to low to provide optimal oil pressure. it seems fine when the tack shows 500+ rpm

I haven't used a bad oil yet. I didn't like M1 5w20 in my f150, it was noisy. that truck ran best on Mobil super synthetic or PYB
 
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Catrol 30w in the cardboard can circa early eighties. Put it into a early 90's Nissan 4x4 4cyl. No issues.
 
Re my Dakota oil light, it's a computer controlled idle and IMO the tach reads a little low.

The oil light came on when I was starting off from a stop-- stick shift, lugging, dropping the RPMs slightly.

Anyway it wasn't the best thing and now I'm running 15w40 and straight 30 weight and plan to keep it in there through the winter.
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Originally Posted By: eljefino
... and straight 30 weight and plan to keep it in there through the winter.
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Is that from the Delo deal? I'm down to two gallons of SAE30 and one 15W40.
 
By far the worst was M1 5w30. Check out my UOA. Looking at the wear metals, I must have taken 50k miles of the engines life.. NEVER again will I make that mistake of using THAT brand. I don't care if they have changed formulations, I still don't trust that oil
 
I dont know if its the worst oil or just the worst application, but I used gear oil once to top off and old wagoneer I had with 150K+ miles and burned oil like crazy. It was all I had and I was broke so I ran it. It didnt make one bit of difference in the way it ran but it sure smelled terrible burning it off!
 
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My son was given a welder with a 30 HP v twin engine and a bad oil leak. We checked the oil when we got it and it had a half a a cup of part oil and part water. Son had just demonstrated that the welder started before we checked the oil.

To flush out the water I used an unknown mixture of our car drain oi and ran the generator for a short time to warm it up. I put in new oil and filter and the oil has stayed clean and my son fixed the leak.

Moral of the story. Don't trust low oil shut offs!
 
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