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Oil filter expiration date?

Interleukin6
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Interleukin6 Enthusiast

Interleukin6

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I plan to buy several 6-qt Mobile 1 engine oils (5W-30) at once when on sale at Costco, which will be used for one year. Per Mobil 1 website, their oils have a 5-year maximum shelf life. How about ACDelco filters? Do these filters also have a shelf life? It was hard to find PF-66 filters (2022 LTD 2.7T) when I changed the oil in the past. I want to buy several at once as well. One more additional question, how about opened-unused oil? Thank you. 

Edited by Interleukin6
Bikerjon Enthusiast

Bikerjon

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Interleukin6 said:

I plan to buy several 6-qt Mobile 1 engine oils (5W-30) at once when on sale at Costco, which will be used for one year. Per Mobil 1 website, their oils have a 5-year maximum shelf life. How about ACDelco filters? Do these filters also have a shelf life? It was hard to find PF-66 filters (2022 LTD 2.7T) when I changed the oil in the past. I want to buy several at once as well. One more additional question, how about opened-unused oil? Thank you. 

There should not be any expiration date on an oil filter. I would not use any opened unused oil after 3 years. I live in Minnesota so we have extreme temperature changes and any chemical or additive will break down after time.

ember1205 Senior Enthusiast

ember1205

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Bikerjon said:

There should not be any expiration date on an oil filter. I would not use any opened unused oil after 3 years. I live in Minnesota so we have extreme temperature changes and any chemical or additive will break down after time.

 

Not to mention that oil is hygroscopic. Once opened, use it up as quickly as you're able to before it draws in too much moisture to be useful.

 

Whether there's a true expiration date on a filter or not, I don't know. I wouldn't use one that's sufficiently old, though, because the filter media could have at least started to break down given the poor storage conditions (heat, cold, humidity, etc.) it may well have sat through over time.

Bikerjon Enthusiast

Bikerjon

Posted
Posted
10 minutes ago, ember1205 said:

 

Not to mention that oil is hygroscopic. Once opened, use it up as quickly as you're able to before it draws in too much moisture to be useful.

 

Whether there's a true expiration date on a filter or not, I don't know. I wouldn't use one that's sufficiently old, though, because the filter media could have at least started to break down given the poor storage conditions (heat, cold, humidity, etc.) it may well have sat through over time.

hygroscopic. Cool word!

Gangly Senior Enthusiast

Gangly

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, ember1205 said:

 

Not to mention that oil is hygroscopic. Once opened, use it up as quickly as you're able to before it draws in too much moisture to be useful.

Engine oil is hygroscopic, but not to the extent of brake fluid or anything like that.  An opened bottle of oil doesn't have to be used immediately, but you don't want to use oil that was opened, left uncapped, and sat around on a shelf in a shed for 2 years either.  For a qt of oil just opened, even the small amount of water that would be absorbed by the engine oil just sitting there unsealed for a few days, is miniscule and would not affect an engine oil's lubricity.  If it did, every engine that sat for a month down here along the Gulf of Mexico would have issues with our annual 97% humidity :)

 

Despite what people think, an engine takes in A LOT of moisture during normal operation, particularly turbo engines.  If you put a clear tube between the intercooler and the intake, it looks like its raining with the engine running.  Moisture is something that is ever present and will get removed from the engine during normal use (heat cycling).

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ember1205 Senior Enthusiast

ember1205

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Gangly said:

Engine oil is hygroscopic, but not to the extent of brake fluid or anything like that.  An opened bottle of oil doesn't have to be used immediately, but you don't want to use oil that was opened, left uncapped, and sat around on a shelf in a shed for 2 years either.  For a qt of oil just opened, even the small amount of water that would be absorbed by the engine oil just sitting there unsealed for a few days, is miniscule and would not affect an engine oil's lubricity.  If it did, every engine that sat for a month down here along the Gulf of Mexico would have issues with our annual 97% humidity :)

 

Despite what people think, an engine takes in A LOT of moisture during normal operation, particularly turbo engines.  If you put a clear tube between the intercooler and the intake, it looks like its raining with the engine running.  Moisture is something that is ever present and will get removed from the engine during normal use (heat cycling).

 

Agreed. Brake fluid can definitely absorb more moisture and has fewer abilities to evaporate it off like would happen in the engine oil. My intent was just to convey that you would want to use it as opposed to letting it sit for very long periods of time. A common scenario I had seen was with certain small engines that would use a small amount of oil and anything more than a quart container for that particular piece of lawn gear (or whatever) would take years to go through all of the oil before it got to a point where you would really want to discard it.

 

I commonly buy a couple of two-packs of the 5qt jugs of oil for the convertible and leave them in the garage for up to a year before I end up using them.  Since they're fully sealed until they are used (the car takes 10 quarts), there's little risk of it causing me any issues. And I -have- to change the oil in the car yearly based on time since I never come close on miles (2500 miles in a summer is about my max).

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Gangly Senior Enthusiast

Gangly

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, ember1205 said:

 

Agreed. Brake fluid can definitely absorb more moisture and has fewer abilities to evaporate it off like would happen in the engine oil. My intent was just to convey that you would want to use it as opposed to letting it sit for very long periods of time. A common scenario I had seen was with certain small engines that would use a small amount of oil and anything more than a quart container for that particular piece of lawn gear (or whatever) would take years to go through all of the oil before it got to a point where you would really want to discard it.

 

I commonly buy a couple of two-packs of the 5qt jugs of oil for the convertible and leave them in the garage for up to a year before I end up using them.  Since they're fully sealed until they are used (the car takes 10 quarts), there's little risk of it causing me any issues. And I -have- to change the oil in the car yearly based on time since I never come close on miles (2500 miles in a summer is about my max).

Lucky You!  I am jealous. 

 

Between our vehicles, I am changing oil every month, with my truck getting changed about every 3 months max.  Fortunately, they all use the same viscosity which makes things super easy now that I can purchase 5qt. oil containers as you mentioned.  When I don't completely empty a 5 qt. container, I just place the lid back on and use the remainder on the next oil change which is usually no more than a few weeks away. 

Grumpy Bear Senior Enthusiast

Grumpy Bear

Posted
Posted
21 hours ago, Bikerjon said:

hygroscopic

 

Motor oils are not hygroscopic in the SENSE this thread implies. It isn't like alcohol, salts or desiccant.  Hygroscopic compounds – Hygroscopic Cycle

 

HOWEVER, it can be contaminated by water and yes, will absorb a very limited amount of water. Less than 1%. But is not chemically altered by it under the conditions being discussed. Certainly not in a sealed container and easy enough to displace if left in an unsealed one. Your oil does this every time you cold start your motor. 

 

Even oxidation without agitation requires pretty free access to O2 and allot of surface area over a very long time. A cap on the container will inhibit this reaction for longer than you care to count. PCMO/HDMO's are not apples or avocado's that oxidize in minutes. Oxygen, agitation and elevated heat past the fluid's initiation temperature is not likely in a container. 

 

You are in larger danger of the expiration of the API service class than you are of an unserviceable oil do to calendar aging. A good shaking will reincorporate the add package should it fall out. 

 

 

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ember1205 Senior Enthusiast

ember1205

Posted
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1 hour ago, Gangly said:

Lucky You!  I am jealous. 

 

Between our vehicles, I am changing oil every month, with my truck getting changed about every 3 months max.  Fortunately, they all use the same viscosity which makes things super easy now that I can purchase 5qt. oil containers as you mentioned.  When I don't completely empty a 5 qt. container, I just place the lid back on and use the remainder on the next oil change which is usually no more than a few weeks away. 

 

Here's "sort of" how it breaks down for me:

 

- Wife's car uses 4.5q of 0W-20 dexos1

- Truck uses 8q of 0W-20 dexos1

- Wife commutes a few hundred miles per week, I work at home

 

This lets me use up a few 5q jugs over the course of year without any issue but I'm not "constantly underneath" them either.

 

My car uses 10q 5W-30 dexos1 and is only driven during sunny, warm weather (it's a convertible). That means I clock 1500-2500 miles per year and the oil gets changed once per year as a result since it's always getting changed based on time and not distance. That's two full 5q jugs. Never have an open one to be worried about there.

 

The generator for the house uses 5W-30, and so do the snowblowers. Among all of those, I can use up about a 5q just once per year.

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      I had skimmed through that article when you posted the link and honestly I felt rather defeated in a sense and realized that all these years in changing oil that in fact putting in what I was told was a good quality oil was probably not filtered as well as it should be although the filter put on the engine would be what ( as long as it never went into bypass mode ) would be the final filtering of the new oil that the engine components would first see, but then the filtering media itself is not up to par to what is ideal because a full flow filter would be too restrictive to filter fine enough for the engines best outcome in the long run. Only one of our tractors over the years which was a Versatile with a 855 Cummins had a separate bypass filter, some engine manufacturers did spec a partial bypass system within the main oil filter but I don't believe any other trucks or equipment I was servicing used such a filter. No doubt a product like the Amsoil bypass system is of benefit as long as nothing goes sideways with the extra plumbing and filter such as a rupture/leak that could cause the oil to pump out of the engine ( yes that Versatile had a remote canister with hoses routed to it as well ). With the idiot egr system on a diesel and as a result forcing a lot more soot into the oil, that certainly isn't helping the diesel engines cause or as you pointed out the GDI engine issue with creating more soot and aside from having a fancy secondary filtering system, changing the oil more often helping lower the total soot load.     So oil manufacturing and the end product is not something one can control and I wonder if there are specs on what various oil packaging companies produce in particle count or size. As to the filtering, if the OEM is not designing a filter size and spec that is really what it could be, they too are short changing the end user and so what is the answer. Of course as you say the oil side can only do so much if the air side isn't keeping up its end of the picture and air filters are only so efficient and if in a dusty environment such as farm or construction or driving gravel roads there is a lot of dirt to filter out and some of that ends up into the air stream.    Of course the irony in places like where I am where they dump the salt on the highways but also will mix in some calcium or outright pure calcium for problem road area's, or using calcium as dust control on gravel roads, the vehicle that gets used in that environment may rust out before a properly engineered engine and maintenance finally wears out so one has to face that reality in the rust belt. 

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