Contamination in new oil

[Dana]

I was adding oil to my engine and saw this in the [clean] funnel:



Oil is Phillips Victory 20W50 (with the Lycoming additive). Anybody seen anything like this?

The gentle shaking of the remainder in the bottle during the drive home mixed it back in, but it settled out again in a week or so:



I sent the images to Phillips, they suspect it's just the additives settling out and nothing to worry about, but asked me to send them a sample anyway. Looks like all the bottles in the case are the same.

 

[Jim K]

Yuck.... that would give me pause, too. I've seen additives settle out of the oil has been sitting around for a year+. I notice it most often with gear oil, but that's probably because I take a while to go through 5 gal, and it's so thick it doesn't slosh around and get mixed back in. In my experience the additives are always black, but all bets are off with aviation oil. The fact that it settled back out so fast throws a big red flag in my mind.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

How old is the stuff? If they asked for a sample, and the other bottles in the case had it, I'd send them a whole bottle.

 

[Bell206]

Looks like that oil went through some extreme ambient temperature changes.

 

[Dana]

It's a case I bought from PSC last year, with what I'm guessing is a 2020 date code. Stored in an unheated hangar... this past winter didn't get too cold, maybe saw low single digits on a few nights. We'll see what they say when they get the sample.

 

[Jdm]

I’ve seen that before. It blends as soon as it begins to move or is shaken. Suspect Phillips is correct on this one. Impressed that they are willing to test it for you.