I have owned my 1999 car from new and it has done 20,000 miles. It is the only car that I have ever owned in which the engine oil never changes colour. Although the car has not done a high mileage in recent years as I have several other cars, I did drive it more when new and managed several thousand miles between annual oil changes. No oil was used and the oil on the dipstick always remained the same golden colour as when refilled with fresh oil.
On all my other cars the oil on the dipstick soon turns black after an oil change.
I can only assume that the pistons in my engine have an exceptional oil tight seal in the bores and I wonder whether any other owners have had the same experience?

 

Yup. Common.

My ap2 has 150k miles, and I change oil when maintenance minder says to. So always longer than 5k miles. Eventually the oil gets light brown. But the first several thousand miles I can't even read dipstick because oil is too clean.

There are a couple of fixes. One is to cook the end of the dipstick so it becomes blued. The color contrast makes it easier to read dipstick.

My propane torch was empty when I did this, so I used the burner on the kitchen gas stove. I did this when the wife was not at home. That was well before covid, when not being at home used to be a thing.