I was made aware the other day that synthetic oil has a shelf life. Also watched a video from a guy that went around buying oil at various places, and some oil was 6 1/2 years old. Pretty important topic, if you are changing your oil at proper intervals, but with worthless oil

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Pete
I ain't no fortunate son

It really depends on how it is stored and if it is sealed. Because synthetic oil is not made from crude oil it does not contain paraffinnic waxes and other substances which stratify (separate and layer)
6.5 year old properly stored and sealed synthetic oil is fine to use.Fresh oil is always "better" but I would not pass on buying a barrel of "outdated" oil especially at a discount. I go through about 2500 gallons of motor oil yearly in my business and most of it today is synthetic. Wonderful stuff. Just don't go 20k miles between changes like some companies say you can..it not THAT good. Also..on cars that don't see many miles...waiting 5 years between oil changes is asking for trouble. Changing the oil is inexpensive insurance against catastrophic damage.
I'm changing an engine in an SUV this week due to negligence on the part of an owner. You can pay me now..or pay me later...

pay me now..or pay me a lot $$$$ later...

Fixed it for ya, lol.

So are their date codes on a quart of oil that you can use to determine when it was made or when it was bottled?

Clarification please: is this artificial oil that goes in normal cars, or oil that goes in artificial cars?

Some cousins are/were AMSOIL dealers. They got into synthetic oil because of their competition off road racing. Then as they grew wiser, they began doing Road Rallys. They bought a Porsche 911 from the Police impound lot that the engine had 180,000 HARD miles on it. They changed the oil every 2000 for the first year and 5000 after that and got another 100 thousand. Swapped engines and rebuilt the original as a backup, and ended putting it in the wife's run around car.

When Mt. St. Helens blew, they had been stocking distributers for 2 years. The home office called with shipping instructions: Every item in their inventory was bought by the home office, and given to police and fire departments that were in the dust mess! They paid a prophet and shipping costs, then gave it all away! My hat is still off to AMSOIL.

Ivan

Amsoil says the shelf life is 2 years. It's best if you store it in a climate controlled area. I've been using Amsoil products since 1985 with good results. Cars, motorcycles, small engines and guns, it works wherever you put it.

I have to wonder why there is a shelf life limit at all? Sitting around at room temperature inside a sealed container, I don't understand why components of synthetic oil of any type would degrade over time, maybe even centuries. Conditions inside an an engine (especially thermal) are vastly more severe than inside an oil container on a shelf and synthetic oil can withstand that environment for extended periods.

Did a search on the topic of synthetic oil shelf life, found only that some manufacturers say it doesn't degrade in the container, some recommend 5 years shelf life. Nothing I read provides anything resembling hard data regarding deterioration during storage (or even if there is any).

Just some obsevations on cars and oil:

My best friend ran a Gulf station in the mid 80's in Worthington, Ohio (very upper middle class). A young man was just out of college and was trying to make a good show "on a budget!" He had a 4 year old luxury car that went through oil almost as fast as gas! Her made an arrangement with my friend to buy used motor oil for one dollar for two gallons, and kept his nice looking car from burning up the engine!

On the other hand, my youngest son, during his senior year of HS (2003), had crash his Customized Van, someone else totaled his very nice car, and that left him with a 1981 Sedan Deville, he had bought it on a lark to make a display for his custom painting business. So on a Saturday we did a brake job and was back on the road! The next Friday he tells me he is uses over a quart a day! I ask how he knows that, he says every time he starts it the little red light flashes on the off. Idiot Lights! Turned out that a 22 year old Caddy with 250,000 miles on it, used less than a quart per 3000! He went to the prom in a purple pin stripped suit, purple paten leather saddle shoes, and a silver fedora, with matching hat band and a "plume" of feathers! Driving the caddy. I never figured out if he was supposed to be a Pimp or a Gangster, but he sure left his mark on that small Christian School!

Ivan

My son uses lots of it ( buys in bulk ) on the ranch. He makes sure he uses it within a couple years.

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John

Darn Ivan, I think I worked at that Gulf station when I was a youngster!
If not, I KNOW I bought some gas there.
BTW, upper middle class was in Upper Arlington. We were just average Joes & Janes

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“Look life in its iron face”

Yes, but it is coded like a julian date code, but mixed in with other numbers sometimes. I bought a qt today, and I asked the manager of the store about the date and shelf life, and he looked at me like I had an arm growing out of the center of my chest. " Never heard of such a thing, and I have been in the business for 40 years". I said, well, look it up, and synthetic oil has not been around 40 years

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Pete
I ain't no fortunate son

Actually, synthetic oil has been around since the late 1960s.... as for a shelf life, it's a lot more stable than conventional oil....

Since synthetic oil is an engineered molecule and not naturally occurring, it should be very stable. Take some of the synthetics we use with "environmentally friendly" drilling fluids, the synthetic is made from methane (natural) gas and I've never heard of it getting "stale" or changing characteristics. But for synthetic engine oil, I would imagine that if anything would degrade over time it would be the additive packages they add to the base oil and not the oil itself.

My best friend had Worthington Gulf 1982-1984. The only resident of that town I knew personally was the regional manager for IBM, he lived on the square, and was way above average. There was a local High School kid that actually worked part time at the station. That is so unusual for any middle class kids now days!

My kids told me a few years ago, They didn't know we were poor, until they left home!
Me: What makes you thing we were poor?
35 year old daughter:We didn't have cable, and we grew our own vegetables!
Me: Ok, lets set the record straight. We were not poor. Poor people don't own their own home, poor people don't send their kids to privet schools, Only poor people can afford to eat all the junk food they want! We just didn't have lots of extra money, so we were broke. But we were never poor!

Ivan

Yes, homes on “the square” were big time old money

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“Look life in its iron face”

Wasn’t Germany making some kind of synthetic oil in WWII?

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“Look life in its iron face”

It goes back further than that. The Germans developed synthetic oils to use in Panzers during the Russian winters. In fact the Germans did a great deal of developmental work on synthetic oils for both vehicles and aircraft during WWII.

I am really dating myself on this, but I remember back in the 50s when many gas stations sold cheap motor oil in glass quart bottles with steel spouts on them - they looked sort of like milk bottles. I seem to remember a quart sold for about a quarter. I heard that it was just filtered used crankcase oil. It probably worked fine for those who had to add a quart or two of oil every time they filled up.

Had an '84 Ranger that was total loss oil system. I just changed the filter every few thousand miles.

^^^^^^^^^
Yup, that's old, lol.
I only remember the coffee can style.
You had to jab the metal funnel thru the lid.

Yes, it has a shelf life. And the specs change, so it may not be compatible with your newest car. But dino oil also has a shelf life, which they say can only be determined by an analysis. I'd run it it older vehicles without worry.

The mil spec synthetic oil in the Air Force had a 20 year shelf life. We had about 70 deuces and 5-tons in our units inventory. We got a shipment of 19 year old oil with instructions to change all of the oil in all of the vehicles just to use it up. The oil got changed once a year or if "X" number of miles occurred before the year was up. In the late 90's we had a number of Deuces with less than 10k on the odometer but they had a delivery date to the Air Force in the early 70's.

Just like my granddad used to say. They were poor but just didn't know it.

It must be pretty stable. It's about 40 million years old before it's pumped out of the ground.

Doesn't shelf life = more oil sold = larger profits?

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Bill

Just because some product has a "use by" date on it doesn't mean that it won't remain good far longer. For example, even bottled water has a "use by" date on it. About a month ago we discovered a canned ham in our storage pantry which had a 2010 "use by" date on it. No indication of spoilage, can was intact and not showing any pressure bulging, and it smelled and looked OK when the can was opened. We used it (wife ground it up and mixed it in with hamburger to make a meat loaf), and we're still alive.

I have a 1995 Ford Ranger 3.0 liter engine pick-up. I brought it used with 10,000 miles on it and now have well over 320,000 miles on the engine. I say well over 320,000 because the odometer broke several years ago at 320,000 and is running backwards now showing 310,000. I have used Mobil 1 5w30 Synthetic Oil in it from day one. A couple of weeks ago I had to put it in the shop and ended up with a $1,500 repair bill. However four new brakes were included in the bill. I had to argue a bit with my mechanic when I told him to put Mobil 1 synthetic oil back in it.

My point is I will take all of the “outdated” synthetic motor oil you have.

In the late 60’s I worked at a Chevron Oil Co, owned station, for several years. The oil in the glass bottles was refinery fresh oil that shipped to us in 55 gallon drums. We sold it to the customer then refilled the bottles and put then back on the display rack. Nothing second tier about that oil.

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Always Stay Strong!

Could be refinery bulk oil. I remember the spouted motor oil bottles were kept in a rack near the gas dispensers, and if you needed to add a quart, you asked the attendant to do it. No self-service back in those days (at that time, at least in Ohio, self-service gas pumping was illegal), and station attendants pumped the gas, washed the windshield and checked the oil. You can still find those glass motor oil bottles on eBay, also lots of reproductions.

One other thing I remember, but involving oil cans in service stations. After a can was used (you would stick a spout in a can), the station would turn the can upside down in a pan and let the residual oil drain out. If you were doing many oil changes, I imagine you could easily recover several quarts of new oil a day for resale.

I think this is what DWalt and old bear are talking about. I can't
believe the glass is intact since I've had it since the mid sixties. I bought Sears Spectrum Oil in a 24 can case back then.
Looks like I'm dating myself also.

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Just askedthe motorcycle dealer this same question today, and he said maybe 5 years. Then he asked how old was the oil? Gave me the look wjen i told him it was Golden Spectro 4 from the early 1990's.

Never worried about oil expiring. Stuff has the shelf life of a Twinkie. Good for for decades. I firmly believe expiration dates are more about moving inventory and maintaining margins than the product degradation.

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213th FBINA

This is what I have been reading. The issues are with the additives

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Pete
I ain't no fortunate son

Expiration date on oil?? Reminds me of the bags containing "Himalayan" salt that is supposedly "millions of years old". The bags have an expiration date on them.

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Ret. LE, FA Instr, S&W Armorer

I have one of these custom coated ones from the late 60’s or early 70’s.
I don’t have one of those glass oil bottles though. I’m not THAT old..good Lord!

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“Look life in its iron face”

Yup.. back in the day every Harley rider carried one of those spouts in the saddle bag. "Got any Valvoline 60W?"

This Sunday we are having a celebration of my aunt and uncle's 60th wedding anniversary. I was at the wedding and I'm going to be at the party.