The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Is it bad to mix brands/weights of oil?

Hope this is a good place to ask this oil related question.

Your low on oil, either in your Stove bolt or modern motor, you don't know or remember what weight or brand you used last time.

How bad is it to mix brands or weights?

Thanks to everyone.

Mixing brands is no big deal IMO. Here we have Pennzoil, Quaker State and Shell all coming from the same refinery! Never pay full price - one of them is on sale.

Oil is oil- - - -it's better to have a mixture of some sort than to run low. I'd even run cooking oil in a real emergency- - - -rather than trash an engine! Just change it as soon as possible.
Jerry

I was way low on oil once and all I had was a gallon of Dexron ATF with me. I put 2 quarts in the engine out of necessity with no illeffects.

A couple of my high school buddies had an oil leak one night, and approached a home at random to ask for help. An elderly lady answered the door, and one of my friends asked for some oil- - - -"We'll take any kind of oil- - - -even castor oil!". "No, son, I don't have any castor oil, but I can give you a good dose of salts if you want it!" They politely declined her kind offer- - - -in a hurry!

Hotrod Lincoln- The instrumental version of that would be Del Woods’ “ Down Yonder”
😂
Please , no offense meant, Jerry, I just remember your story about your aunt

Just don’t use or abuse Olive Oyle or you’ll get on the wrong side of Popeye!

Back in '68 soon after I got my license, my Aunt Roxana visited with her month-old baby, on her way back to Spartanburg ( a four hour drive.). Dad had me drive her back, catch a bus to Charleston and ride with my uncle to my grandma's. Her Bonneville was a quart low, so I asked her what oil did she use. Her reply was... "I don't know... Wesson Oil?" I poured in a quart of HD30wt Quaker State and we drove off.

ATF does a nice job of cleaning things.

I'm pretty sure Dollar General doesn't own a refinery but they manage to get their name on retail bottles somehow. It all comes from the same place(s) no matter the brand name on the bottle.

Mixing brands is not a bad thing but they are definitely not all the same. There are a number of different oil chemistries that can meet the requirements to get an API license. As Jerry said, a mix is better than running low but if possible use the same brand to prevent unintended concequences of chemistries that do not blend well. Dollar General and other name brands are just that, brands. They have a sourcing agreement with an oil producer to provide a product with their name on it. Unfortunately you have no way of knowing if they changed sources so I prefer to stick to oil company brands.