Hey guys,

This may be a silly question, but is there any quick and easy way to visually distinguish between synthetic and conventional dino oil?

I'm opening up my used car for the first time this weekend and was hoping I could get a clue of what the previous owner (or their mechanics) were putting in my new baby



If not, I might put in synthetic blend for the next 3000 miles and then switch to full synthetic.

 

I've seen a lot of oil, and I can't tell the difference.

I would just assume that the previous owner put cheap junk in there... I'd run Mobil 1 in it if I were you... if you notice smoking or oil loss go back to dino oil...

 

Intel - It'll be hard to tell w/o doing an oil analysis but if ya just want to know if the car was using conventional oil before, take the oil cap off & run your finger around the inside of the valve cover. If U find a buildup of sludge then it's unlikely that he was using a synthetic. It's not foolproof because the previous owner could have used an engine flush before selling it but it might getcha headed in the right direction.

 

Heh MG,

that's a good to know info about running your finger on the inside of the valve cover, when I look for a juugee to drive instead of my GS, I'll do that finger test.

 

talk to the oil.say hello what kind of oil are you.after you get that out of your system,put mobile 1 in the car.

 

ahahah....funny

 

pee in the oil, if it turn green then it's conventional oil
if you turn green, then it's sync oil ha ha ha

 

not really. I know with the synthetic I run the engine oil starts to turn a slight browish at about 8K miles.

Outside of that, no. Only an oil test will show a dino vs synthetic. Most dino oils are only like 7.0 to 7.5 TBN and the Ph and Zn are usually below 1000ppm..(with ZERO miles on oil). Basically the ZDDP will suck.