Re: Castrol Syntec question

[kauffman@IMAP2.ASU.EDU]

On Thu, 1 Aug 1996 I wrote:

> Was just changing the oil in the 5OOO, pouring in the fresh Syntec, when 
> I noticed that it was much darker than the last dozen quarts I'd used 
> before.  So I took a sniff, and it even smelled different than usual!?!  
> I opened another of the new bottles... same thing.  Has anybody noticed 
> this out there?  I just don't want to put possibly contaminated oil into 
> the Audi.  Probably nothing wrong, but why would this batch be _so_ 
> different??

I ended up buying four more quarts of Syntec at PepBoys, after making sure
they didn't smell like the stuff I bought eariler, and then took the 'bad'
oil back to AutoZone (a different AutoZone than where I bought the stuff)
-- two opened, two unopened quarts -- described the color/oder difference
to the guy there... was skeptical at first (so would I) but after opening
one of the unopened bottles I had bought eariler and comparing it with the
'good' bottles, he understood what I was talking about... told me it had a
'used' smell... offered to exchange for four more quarts, but they all 
had the bad smell too... I just got a refund then.

I don't seriously think that it was 'used', but they seemed to be 
contaminated in some way.  The thing is, I had no way of knowing if it 
was good or not... it was simply so different and, frankly, did have a 
used appearance, I had to try to find out if something was wrong.  
Unfortunately, I still don't know, but I did manage to put 'proper' 
looking/smelling Syntec into the car.  I'd be interested in hearing if 
anyone knows something about this or experienced something similar.

Regards,
 
Karl K.      '86 5OOOS  132k mi
Mesa, AZ     '79 Fox  145k mi