If you drive a diesel, then the oil will lookvery black, not just black, but JET BLACK after just a little usage. The oil is still good, it's just what happens in a diesel engine. It's not as extreme in a gas engine, but like what was said before, you can't just tell by color.


Cheers!

 

Nope, nothing "burnt" about it. The reason your oil starts looking dark is that it is carrying various combustion byproducts in suspension. That said, there is absolutely zero science that shows that black oil (that still has a useful additive pack) will protect an engine one iota worse that brand new oil. The flip side is that there are a number of scientific studies that show that new oil actually increases engine wear for the first thousand miles or two. While I think this has yet to be definitively proven, it is an interesting datapoint none-the-less.

For my part, I submit that the best thing you can do for your engine regarding lubrication is to buy the best oil you can and leave it in there for as long as it is good. The trick here is figuring out how long the oil can last, and to that end, many manufacturers, GM, Honda, and BMW among others, are equipping their cars with Oil Life Monitors (OLMs) to aid in answering that very tricky question. For cars not so equipped, having a few UOAs performed can help you nail down a good OCI for your car and only you car.

FWIW, I've had UOAs run on both of our current (non-OLM equipped) cars, and said UOAs indicate that Mobil 1 0W-40 is good for ~12,500 miles. Given that I want to err a tad on the conservative side, I usually target the oil changes at about 10,000 miles (which usually means I get to the oil change by 11,000). Even with OCIs that are more than 50% beyond the factory recommendation I was delighted to see that all of the honing marks were still on the cylinder walls of our oldest vehicle (which had 143,625 miles on it at the time) last summer after I yanked the heads off to replace the head gaskets (a shop diagnoseda blown head gasket due to a coolant leak into the oil, a leak that turned out to have been from a ten cent "O" ring in the timing cover, but that's another story).

 

WOW shipo is the OIL GOD!
I learned more about oil in this post then the past 50 oil post's out there.
Chef I think this needs to be modified and added under oil in the nOOb thread.

 

Yeah, especially if Shipo is willing to do UOAs on all of our oil, that way we can develop a base line for oil changes dependent on your driving habits. Think of it Shipo, you could be a legend! Think about it!



Cheers!

 

Shipo,

Who does your oil analysis? Last time I did mine was with Titan and they basically came back with an acceptable rating with no actual numbers.

 

I use Blackstone Labs and I also pop for the extra TBN analysis.

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/

 

Thats awesome i think i will get in touch with them about sending out a sample. small price to pay to prolonging the life of the car. I did end up getting it changed yesterday at the dealership and they thought i was crazy to be doing it before 15k. O well

 

ideally u should change after every 5k to 6k miles. but u can also check with ur dealer and he can let u know according to ur vehicle's condition.