The Quickshift
- The idea of using old, unused motor oil might seem enticing to some, but doing so could cause more harm than good.
- Lake Speed Jr., A.K.A. The Motor Oil Geek on YouTube set out to answer the age-old dilemma of whether using old but unused motor oil could damage an engine.
- The results are pretty unsurprising, and it's amazing to see just how much oil can degrade over time.
Do you have a bunch of old engine or gear oil sitting in your shed? If you do, then chances are you’ve thought about using it and putting it either in your engine or gearbox to prevent it from going to waste. I know I sure have, as just a few days ago, I found a few liters of unused engine oil that must’ve been at least a couple of years old now.
And while using unopened engine oil that’s two or three years old surely won’t cause any problems, the case is very much different when we look at oil that’s a couple decades old.
And this is exactly what Lake Speed Jr., A.K.A. The Motor Oil Geek on YouTube, set out to answer. Luckily, Lake’s dad is an OG racer, who used to race go-karts, among other things, internationally, even beating Ayrton Senna in the global leagues. Having raced professionally since the 80s all the way up to the early 2000s, there was no question about it: there was surely a bunch of old engine oil in Mr. Speed’s workshop.
After a quick trip to his dad’s workshop, Lake Speed Jr. was able to get his hands on a wide selection of vintage motor oils. From fully synthetic racing oils to mineral-based gear oil, and even a well-preserved can of Mobil1 motor oil, Lake got it all and was ready to put each of the oils to the test.
He highlights a quick and easy way to determine whether or not the oil can still be used. All you have to do is pour all the oil out into a clear glass container. After this, cut open the original oil bottle to see if there are any sediments at the bottom. If there are, then that’s a bad thing, because these sediments are the additives that were mixed into the oil. Naturally, without these additives, the oil can’t effectively do its job of keeping your engine and tranny from going kaboom.
And no, you can’t just collect all those additives and mix them back into the oil, either.
Now, if your oil seems to be in good shape as it hasn’t left any additives in its original container, well, still don’t use it, as some of the less visible additives, such as anti-foam additives, may have slipped out over the years. This is where the foam test comes into play, and it’s really easy to do. All you need is a simple milk frother to agitate and aerate the oil. If the foam doesn’t collapse in around a minute or so, then it may be time to dispose of the old oil.
You see, oil needs to be in liquid form to efficiently lubricate the moving parts of your engine. And all those moving parts inevitably cause foam to build up. So if your oil pump picks up a bunch of airy oil foam instead of actual oil, well, that’s a recipe for accelerated wear, super high temperatures, and a lot of very expensive noises coming from your engine much sooner than necessary.
At the end of it all, all of the old oils failed the tests. Even the fancy Mobil1 racing oil didn’t pass the foam test, despite it managing to keep the rest of its additives in check.
I think the moral of the story here is that you’re definitely better off ponying up a few extra dollars on fresh oil rather than using some old oil you’ve forgotten about decades ago. I mean, today’s oils are so much more specialized in handling increased temperatures and smaller clearances, so it’s a win-win for new oil when compared to old oil.
So there you have it. If you’re a boomer thinking of putting some decades-old oil in your shed inside your car or motorcycle’s engine, well you might want to think twice. Maybe that bottle of vintage motor oil is better off as a display piece on your shelf, reminding you of the glory days of motoring.
