Kendall oil mystery

[Joe Elliott <jee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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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