Engine oil

[Vickel]

hey i was just wondering if i can purchase alot of enine oil when its on sale and just keep it in the house.
if so how long can i keep it for?

[sunnybono]

There really isn't an Expiry date on engine oil as long as its in a seal container, like when you bought it. Once the container is opened and poured into the engine, then there is a timeline as the oil is now exposed to the environment. Ergo, the saying to change or oil every 4,000 kms or 3 months, whichever comes first.

I know what you mean about stocking up. I usually wait for mobil 1 5w30 to go on sale b4 I stock pile it!!!!

sk

[corrupt123]

4k 3 months? Wow, I've always been under the impression it was 5k or six months. And since newer cars are getting beefier, those numbers shoul dbe even higher.

Depends on the vehicle/oil I suppose.

[sshe11]

you can usually run synthetic oils like Mobil1 for twice as long than regular oil ...

[mau108]

the rule of thumb most "oil enthusiasts" use is no more then 5 years.

If you look at the bottom of the bottle of oil, you'll see a code, on Castrol Syntec bottles, it will start with M05 or M04 which means 2005 or 2004. The next 3 numbers tell you which day it was made.

M05164 will tell you the bottle of oil you have in your hand was packaged the 164th day of 2005 ;)

I think the code is different for each manufacturer, I'd goto bobistheoilguy.com and read up ;)

[new_vr]

4k 3 months? Wow, I've always been under the impression it was 5k or six months. And since newer cars are getting beefier, those numbers shoul dbe even higher.

Depends on the vehicle/oil I suppose.
Follow what your oil manual says. But 4k seems rather premature, even for dino oil

[tkyoshi]

It really depends, the time wise is more important because if your car is sitting around say for 3 months straight the oil is going to get contaminated. In addition if you drive short distances all the time you will also get a lot more crap in the oil (party cause the engine doesn't get hot enough to burn some of the stuff off) therefore the time is more important though if you don't live in a harsh climate extending it a couple months probably wouldn't do much harm but 3 months is the guideline.

Distance wise, you can usually go further than 5000km (e.g. if you do a lot of highway driving), but it's hard to say, again based on conditions. Unless if you have a car with say the GM oil life monitor, it can usually gague pretty well for normal oil when to change it (e.g. for long distances it may not ask you to change it for 8000km but short distances it asks you to change it more often), in addition regardless of the oil life, they reccomend you change your oil at least once a year regardless of whether the oil life went off (for people who hardly drive their car).

[Pete_Coach]

Oil can be stored indefinately but, before you use it make sure you agitate the can sufficiently to ensure the additives are dispersed in the oil again. The suspension of the additives is not finite and can drop to the bottom of the can. This is actually a good practice any time you add oil.

Lots of oil info

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/

http://www.performanceoiltechnology.com/saeviscosityclassificationsandmanfrequirements.htm .


http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/stories/oil-life.html

http://www.repairfaq.org/filipg/AUTO/F_oil_facts.html