Mobil 1 Shelf Life

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Setec Astronomy

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So I'll keep this brief, I talked to Mobil 1 tech support about whether some old ATF I have met the newer version of a spec, and I was told it doesn't matter because my fluid is too old, that it's only good for 5 years in the sealed container and 1 year after it's opened. Mine are sealed so I focused on that pointing out that my factory fill has already been in there for longer than that, and my maintenance schedule is mileage only, not time. I asked what happens after 5 years, they said they can't guarantee top performance or something like that.

So I said ok, besides the shelf life issue, would the fluid meet the spec, and he said he was quite confident that the performance would meet the newer version spec, but that he couldn't certify the fluid since it was made before the new spec, and that he was writing down in his notes that he told me not to use my fluid because it was too old (which should be of great help to the warranty claims dept. at Exxon Mobil considering that he had no idea who I was).

After I got off the phone from all this silliness, I realized that the guy had told me that Mobil 1 ATF is only good for one year after the bottle is opened. Since it's not likely that I could get the fluid into my transmission without opening the bottle, by extension of that logic, I now must change my trans fluid every year. Huh?

Which then reminded me of someone asking here or at BITOG "does motor oil go bad" and someone answering "if it lasted for 65 millions years in the ground it should be ok in your basement for 10" or something like that. Of course Mobil 1 is synthetic (sort of) so maybe it goes bad because it doesn't have any dinosaur livers in it.

Anyway, what a crock of big-business CYA crap, and I'm still not sure if my old Dexron III fluid meets the IIIh my manual requires. I just don't want to pour it in the waste oil drum if I don't have to.

(sorry wound up not being brief)
 
Pour it in, who is going to know it's "old" fluid? Transmission fluid goes unchanged in many vehicles for 10+ years of use. Also is there an expiration date on the bottle? Didn't think so, use it.
 
The only fluid you need to worry about once open is brake fluid. All the rest is propaganda.
 
wytstang said:
Pour it in, who is going to know it's "old" fluid? Transmission fluid goes unchanged in many vehicles for 10+ years of use. Also is there an expiration date on the bottle? Didn't think so, use it.
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Yeah, the age doesn't faze me, it's whether Dexron III meets the newer IIIh spec, I figure the III spec wasn't written around a synthetic fluid so the Mobil 1 probably exceeded the performance by a wide margin, and that it's possible it meets the IIIh.

I don't want to burn up my trans because I couldn't bear to part with $50 of old ATF, but on the other hand, I don't want to dump it for no reason. Did I ever tell you how many old bottles of wax I have?
 
swanicyouth said:
The only fluid you need to worry about once open is brake fluid. All the rest is propaganda.
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Yeah, I know, as I said above it's the spec rev part I'm worried about, which I couldn't get a straight answer on because the guy was too busy telling me how the fluid I had was too old.

FWIW I posted this thread not to ask about the shelf life, because I know it's BS, but just to rant about how they try to feed you this BS. And then he asked me if I knew my windshield wipers were worn out (dealer joke).
 
there are a couple things to keep in mind, obviously the 5 year "shelf life" of the ATF is a CYA for XOM. but the reason they have it: someone at some point probably had a bottle of ATF that was 20+ years old, had crud in the fluid, (or moisture), used it anyways and made XOM pay for the damage their fluid caused because they didn't have a shelf life on it.

if you want true synthetic motor oil from XOM, use the mobil 1 extended performance, it is a real pao synthetic, mobil 1 is made from group 3 base oils. I use the EP with BG MOA and still change oil and filter every 3-4,000 miles.

the other thing that struck me as odd is you saying that your maintenance schedule is by mileage only, not time? if your vehicle was built back when NADA average annual mileage was 10,000 miles/year use that as a reference for how many miles = 1 month.
 
cplchris said:
if you want true synthetic motor oil from XOM, use the mobil 1 extended performance, it is a real pao synthetic, mobil 1 is made from group 3 base oils. I use the EP with BG MOA and still change oil and filter every 3-4,000 miles.
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Is that the story now? I remember when the EP first came out it was not like that, it simply had the SL(?) level of that catalyst-killing AW additive. If the EP is back to being the real PAO like M1 of old, I'm in.

cplchris said:
the other thing that struck me as odd is you saying that your maintenance schedule is by mileage only, not time? if your vehicle was built back when NADA average annual mileage was 10,000 miles/year use that as a reference for how many miles = 1 month.
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I don't have my GM manual in front of me, but I believe they say you don't even have to change the trans fluid at all unless you're in "severe service" (which of course we all are). And the severe service is 50K miles, no time. I wasn't referring to the motor oil, which is 1 year or when the OLI tells you, whichever comes first.
 
OK...
I'll concede that dinosaurs probably once existed...
(as proven by the archeological bone-findings).

But how can I, or anyone else, know for sure if dinosaurs had livers? Sure: There's been a lot of speculation from the Scientific Community; but the facts are that nothing can be done to prove, or disprove, the physiology of dinosaurs.

As such:
That limits my scientific interest in:
their "internals' capabilities".


Bob
 
cplchris said:
if you want true synthetic motor oil from XOM, use the mobil 1 extended performance, it is a real pao synthetic, mobil 1 is made from group 3 base oils. I use the EP with BG MOA and still change oil and filter every 3-4,000 miles.



.
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I'd love to know where Mobil says this. I thought their base stock components where proprietary.
 
I would use the fluid. sounds like marketing fluff from Mobil 1. sure when it gets open the shelf life is less but to say that you fluid is bad is sad. being a member of Bitog I have seen people use oil and fluids much older with no ill effects.
 
flatstick said:
I would use the fluid. sounds like marketing fluff from Mobil 1. sure when it gets open the shelf life is less but to say that you fluid is bad is sad. being a member of Bitog I have seen people use oil and fluids much older with no ill effects.
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Yeah, the age doesn't bother me. I finally found some references to the difference between the Dexron III and IIIH and it seems like they would be natural qualities of the synthetic fluid, so I'm not too worried about using the fluid I have, however I did find that although my car doesn't require Dexron VI (which is a low-viscosity fluid), it was the factory fill on my car as GM switched everything over, so I will be adding about a half-fill of thicker fluid, not sure if that will change any shift feel, etc.
 
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