Re: Kendall oil mystery

[sherwood white <vze2skmv@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

hi kendall was bought by sun oil about 2 years ago and it started going
down hill fast right from the start even when it was still green it was
not as good i stopped using it then.  i saw a 15 lb change in oil pressure
using a mechanical gauge when it was still green i don't know what to use
now

Joe Elliott wrote:

> Does anyone else on this list besides myself and Jim Kirzinger use
> Kendall 20w50 oil in their V6 Alfas?
>
> Did anyone notice a difference in oil consumption when the color of
> Kendall's oil changed from that weird green to a more conventional
> tan color?  (I believe this coincided with the change in bottle cap
> color from gold to red.)
>
> When I switched from Castrol GTX 20w50 to Kendall GT1 20w50 I noticed
> a reduction in oil consumption.  When I replaced the engine's
> valvestem seals i noticed another drastic reduction, so I thought I'd
> solved my oil consumption problem, and I reverted to the cheaper,
> more readily available Castrol.  However, the oil consumption
> returned.  So at the next oil change I went back to Kendal, but
> consumption stayed at the same high level.  This is been a very
> annoying mystery for me ever since, but it just occured to me that my
> second switch to Kendall oil may have coincided with the changes in
> their product.
>
> I was recently at an AutoZone in Pittsburgh that evidently doesn't
> sell a lot of Kendall 20w50 because they still had a few quarts of
> green-colored, gold-capped 20w50 on the shelf.  On the way to
> Pittsburgh that weekend my car burned 2 quarts of Kendall 20w50
> (contemporary--red cap, normal color).  After adding two quarts of
> the old Kendall 20w50 (gold cap, greenish color), my car used less
> than a quart!  Before I go nuts trying to buy all the old-formula
> Kendall GT1 20w50 in the country, I thought I'd ask the digest for
> thoughts.
>
> I found this indicating that the reformulated oil should be better,
> but that's inconsistent with my experience last weekend:
> http://www.kendallmotoroil.com/techtips/GT1_Reformulation.pdf
>
> I've also learned that Kendall makes a synthetic blend oil that's
> available in 10w50, the viscosity called for by Alfa but generally
> unavailable in North America!  However AutoZone doesn't carry it, and
> I can't find anyone on the internet that does either, so I'm not sure
> how I'm going to get any.  I'm also reluctant to use a non-synthetic
> oil with that wide a viscosity range, but since this stuff is a
> blend, maybe I shouldn't be too worried.  Any thoughts?  Anyone know
> where to buy this stuff?
>
> Joe Elliott
> '82 GTV-6
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