Re: Castrol Syntec question

[John Cooper <Jacques.Noir>]

At 03:10 08/02/96 +0000, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>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??  Anybody know of a phone # for Castrol?  I'm going to try to 
>look something up on the net in the meantime.  Can't wait too long on 
>this... need the car tomorrow!
>
>TIA
>
>Karl K.      '86 5OOOS  132k mi
>Mesa, AZ     '79 Fox  145k mi
 
Funny you should come across this.  When I was a motorcycle dealer, we got
Castrol 20W-50 GTX by the 55 gal drum as it was easier to service
motorcycles this way.
But after our first barrel was delivered, we were notified by Castrol to not
use the oil, they would come by and exchange it for the correct formulation.  
Apparently, they messed up on the additive mix and put too much of something
in it.
All was taken care of.  But the "bad" oil didn't cause any problems in few
motorcycles we did use it in before they caught the problem.  And it did
smell unusual when compared to the replacement barrel.
Coop
Jacques.Noir@worldnet.ans.net