Skip to main content

Reply to "New Turbine Oil Foaming"

Very few fluid lubricants are intentionally dyed. ATF is red so that you know whether your trans is leaking (dyed) or your engine (not dyed). That's also why coolant is fluorescent green or yellow or orange and brake fluid is usually clear. When you see a leak, you know just what system is leaking.

Some very light industrial oils are given a pinch of dye so they are more visible in sight-glasses.

The base stock systems of most engine oils are pretty pale, even minerals. It's the additives that give them color. There may have been some early developmental versions of synthetics that were paler than most, possibly because they were using neat additives to avoid adding any mineral base oil to the mix. (Dry or very viscous additives are often pre-diluted in mineral oils.)

(The term 'pale' above is used to describe color, not to indicate high-naphthenic content.)

So no, most fluid lubes are not intentionally dyed. Royal Purple dyes many of their products purple as a marketing ID. As I noted previously. LE uses a lot of red dye, possibly to mask haze when their products get wet.

I've known of some customers who are running identical systems side-by-side with intertwined piping who will dye one system so they can ID the source of a leak more quickly.

Basically, dye costs money; why add it if you're not getting a benefit from it?

Grease is another story - greases are often dyed. Steel mills like their greases black. It's hard to sell a paper mill a grease that isn't red. Once, after making an off-white batch without dye for a mill making white paper, I had a conversation with an oiler who swore "That red grease was better." There was no way we could convince this guy that it was the exact same grease without the dye (that added no benficial properties). "That red grease was better" was his answer, no matter what we said.

Sometimes perception is reality, in a limited sense. The next batch for that mill was dyed red.
×
×
×
×