# What do people use used motor oil for?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-use-used-motor-oil-for/425799
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 9, 2007, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-use-used-motor-oil-for/425799 "2007-11-09T17:13:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2007, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-use-used-motor-oil-for/425799/21 "2007-11-10T17:55:43Z")
[QUOTE=Carson O’Genic]
Tuckerfan,can you give a cite for that closing comment,
[/QUOTE]
I think it comes from the movie Fight Club, but I’m not certain where it originates before that. Obviously, this is a very bad idea. Even if there is some possibility that it doesn’t actually kill your lawn, the groundwater contamination would be very bad. Not to mention it is probably illegal.
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### Author:  [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2007, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-use-used-motor-oil-for/425799/22 "2007-11-10T18:04:48Z")
30 years ago, when I was a teenager, I knew somebody at school who bought a car for about $100. It was total junk, of course, and burned oil…a lot of oil. He had to add oil every day…so he collected used oil from his dad’s service station.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2007, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-use-used-motor-oil-for/425799/23 "2007-11-10T18:22:55Z")
Many, many years ago, I drove a used 61 Chevy Impala, and it drank oil like crazy. I bought the refiltered “used” oil.
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### Author:  [@Carson\_O\_Genic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carson_O_Genic)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-use-used-motor-oil-for/425799/24 "2007-11-10T18:26:56Z")
Christopher,I wasn’t going to try it.After several decades in oil& gas transmission I know better than to court the EPA.
But I was coming at it from a composter’s,or gardener’s POV . Fertiliser is usually nitrogenous,but there is always a carbonaceous counterpart when composting,and people often question whether cooking oil (not entirely dissimilar) can be used in compost piles.
Hence my query to Tuckerfan.
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-use-used-motor-oil-for/425799/25 "2007-11-10T20:30:56Z")
The Chevrolet Corvair was a lovely little car, but General Motors had never made a boxer motor before, and it famously leaked oil. I knew one guy who put a pan under the engine in the garage every night. Every morning, he’d pour it back in, and add some besides.
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