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Major colors like green, blue, red, ect are as others said for ID purposes. This is most often seen with 2 cycle oils being colored green, blue, purple, ect so that you can readily see that it has been mixed with the gas. Others use colorant as stated to ID leaking fluids on equipment. Some oil blenders used colors in the same manner to ID oil that is a certain percentage of re-claimed or special oils like non-conductive hydraulic oils for use in bucket trucks. Now, if you are talking about color differences in like oils such as Valvoline 5W30 or Havoline 5W30, Cam2 5W30 and Mobile 5W30 (only to name a few), that's a different story since all are honey colored but the visible colors vary from brand to brand. Valvoline is nearly clear with only a slight honey tint while Mobile is slightly darker tinted and Havoline and Cam2 are almost brown. These color differences can be caused by any number of things like cleanliness of the oil itself during the refining process, additives, ect. Generally, the better the oil is refined and filtered, the better the oil and lighter in color it is. Oil can also be refined well and be nearly clear in color yet have dirty additives in it that make it darker and thus negate the quality of the refining process. For the most part, the cheaper the oil, the crappier it is and is usually indicated by the color. I was a big Texaco user and used Havolive exclusively in my equipment as well as my customers..until one day... I hit the bottom of a 55 gallon barrel of 15W40 Havoline diesel oil and found about 2" of thick sludge. I opened another barrel from a different blander and same thing but not as bad, the third barrel also from a different blender was worse than the first one. Upon showing the supplier the problem, he quickly gave credit for the oil. I switched to a local blenders company brand of oil and used it until the company owner died and the formulas were changed to make them cheaper. Went with Shell Rotella for the diesels and Valvoline for the gas engines. Proof is in the end results and they are very clear when you use a lot of something. Normal oil changes on the fleet diesels were done every 300 hours with the Havoline as suggested by the analysis lab I send the samples to. After switching to Rotella, oil changes are now done every 500 hours. Most filters used are Baldwin brand with a few Donaldson's here and there, more money for these brands but far better quality. This is not going on outward appearance but rather on results of oil analysis done by the lab. The Mystik bran gear oil I use is red in color and you can't visually compare the quality to oil that is brown or honey colored. The checks are done in the lab. Switching from Mobile gear oil to Mystik was done simply because of end results in performance. Same tranny and differentials running with the Mobile ran 15 to 40 degrees cooler with the Mystik. Oil samples proved better life span with the Mystik as opposed to the Mobile and the cost is the same. It always gets me when I hear someone asking, "what's the cheapest oil or filter I can get for...?" I was always told, there's no such thing as a dumb question but I'd have to consider the possibility that there is a "dumb question" when I hear this one time and time again. My response is usually the same as with the guy in the auto parts store looking for oil and filters for his generator used to run his grain drier / mill. He paid a salty $18,000 some odd for a Cat diesel genset that in reality should not have cost him more than about $12K. Fact aside that he got screwed out of 6 grand to begin with, now he's looking for 50 cent a quart oil and a 2 dollar filter to use on it. So I asked why do you want "cheap" instead of "best"? He said, "filters are filters and oil is oil!" So I asked if this is true, why did you buy a Cat powered genset instead of a Duetz or Onan? To which he replied, (now get this) "that cheap crap will never hold up." My responce, "OK, so your telling me that these are cheap junk compared to a Cat and yet you expect your Cat to run longer and harder on cheap junk oil and filters than either of the other two brands?" The look I got was priceless when I said this. Brands aside, if you are buying a piece of equipment, you obviously need or want it. You'll pay for quality equipment but then skimp on giving it the quality fuel, oils and filters it needs to remain "quality equipment"..... .WHY? I know this is not the point of this post but think about it... You buy a new pick-up truck for 30 grand then want to use a 2 dollar crap oil filter that probably won't filter anything and 50 cent a quart oil, yet will fill the fuel tanks with 94 octane gas at $1.70 a gallon. Sorry, I just don't get the reasoning behind this. Why not buy $1.60 a quart high quality oil and a $7 oil filter that works like it's supposed to? Why spend thousands of dollars on a piece of equipment you are only going to destroy by using cheap crap in it?
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