I changed my oil a little over a week ago, using 3.5q Valvoline 10w30 Max Life, and 1qt of Lucas Oil Stabilizer. I just went out and checked my oil because my car before the oil change has been using oil. When I wiped the dipstick on a white towel the oil was a mossy green/brown color. My guess is the Lucas but not sure, I went ahead and took a whiff of the oil and it smelt OK, and there was no residue or foam in the oil. Is this from the Lucas? Or should I be keeping an eye out? The car is not running funny just about as normal as I'm used to. The only thing out of the ordinary that the car has done since the first day I owned it was idle a little low at traffic lights or when I stopped for a few seconds. It only does this after the car has warmed up to the optimum temp. Any clue as to what that could be? The car has new plugs/wires.

How many miles on the car/engine? Headgasket maybe? It's possible that you might be leaking coolant so it mixes with your oil, but I'm not for sure. It's just a thought to throw out there I guess.

That also crossed my mind, so I will check the coolant level in the morning. But if I had coolant leaking into my oil wouldn't my car be smoking? There is also no sign of over heating as well and here in Springfield there is a lot of stop and go traffic. Also the car has 136k miles on it and is an auto.

I would think so, but I'm not for sure unless it isn't a huge leak. The best way to rule out a headgasket would be compression test. If your gasket was leaking, you numbers would be off. Testers are around $30 at advance or autozone.

Ok went out with a flash light and checked my coolant, the coolant level I guess is fine because I can remove the cap and see fluid sitting in there, and I also have green fluid. I then removed the oil cap and on the bottom of the cap is more green oil. The oil smells nothing like the antifreeze, the oil smells like oil mixed with gas almost. And I also heard that you can smell the exhaust, so I started my car and took a couple whiffs of the exhaust fume and it has a very rich sweet smell to it. But there is no smoke. And like I said before the car has never over heated on me, I guess I will check the spark plugs next. It all sounds like a blown head gasket to me, I will see what I can do about doing a compression test as soon as I can.

I guess I was worrying about nothing at all. The car is fine I had it checked out by a mechanic at work. He told me that I must of been use to the color of my old oil (Castrol GTX High Mileage 10W30) because I started using Valvoline Max Life 10W30 with my last oil change, with some Lucas Oil Stabilizer. He told me the oil is real clean and looks good. I guess the Valvoline I'm using is a synthetic blend, while the Castrol is not. Thanks for the help I guess we can close this thread.

Good to hear that the car is ok, lucas shouldn't cause any color change but I've never had any problems with it.

Yeah, but I would still be cautious because of this:

You had a GREEN tint to the oil and the exhaust smelled SWEET.

I dunno, im super anal about stuff, so I would check it out to be safe :thumbsup:

Ive used both Lucas and that oil, never had a green tint to me.

Usually if the oil has coolant in it, it'll look more like a chocolate milkshake.

you could try pouring some rubbing alcohol in the coolant and then smelling the exhaust, it'll singe your nosehairs with the smell if the HG is leaking.

Good tip, never heard that before!

Well, all the mechanics told me the oil did not look green to them. And I could be wrong about the exhaust fume as well because I don't make it a habit of sniffing fumes *cough, cough*. But the exhaust did smell a bit rich to me, which I think is normal because all cars run rich stock from what I'm told. Oh and yeah here is a kicker... My mother called me today asking about the car, and decided to tell me they found out when I was in 1st grade that I'm color blind! Not severe just slightly, and from the sounds of it possibly color blind enough to think my oil was green. Now how I never knew I was color blind for the past 20 something years I have no clue.... I'm still going to run some tests on the car like a compression test and possibly a leak down test just to make sure the engine is doing fair. Compression should be between what 170-210???

Yeah, when I worked for Checker auto parts we'd get douchenozzles that would dump mixed "sludge" in our tank all the damn time. pissed me off. We had a GIANT sign that said "NO COOLANT, NO CONTAMINATED OIL, NO FUEL, NO FLAMABLE LIQUIDS" stupid redneck assholes still dumped everything they could in our tank.

Sorry for the rant, but I learned what everything looked and smelled like in oil while I was there

Your oil is fine. Sometime new, clean oil looks like it has a bit of green tinge to it on a paper towel. I noticed the color too the first time a few years ago - fresh oil on a clean towel, looks more light green than light brown. And AFAIK, I have no headgasket issues. No coolant fumes in the exhaust, coolant levels seem to be stable across time.

I have seen coolant get into the oil on other cars. And when it does, it looks like milky swirls. Much different than this green color I see with new oil.

coolant in oil will never turn the oil green. take a cup of old mixed oil and try to mix coolant into it.

Used oil will sludge just sitting in a bucket over time......keep that in mind next time you accuse someone of mixing coolant in their oil and then trying to dump it.

Originally posted by Star Turbo Talon
coolant in oil will never turn the oil green. take a cup of old mixed oil and try to mix coolant into it. Used oil will sludge just sitting in a bucket over time......keep that in mind next time you accuse someone of mixing coolant in their oil and then trying to dump it.

this stuff was pretty obvious, I've probably seen thousands of gallons of used oil in the past ~3 1/2 years, you can tell the difference between old used "sludged" oil and contaminated stuff