Re: for the guys that are into recreational oil changing...

Sarcasm,right? :)

Reply to
Bill Putney
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oops - meant to say "my elderly mother" there.

"her" not "he"

In too much of a hurry.

Reply to
Bill Putney

As does the fact they both agree that as little as 3000 miles may be appropriate for short trips, extreme cold, oe extreme heat.

Reply to
clare

Evidence that bulk oil is inferior, if it is the same brand and grade.

Jeff

Reply to
dr_jeff

Aimed at the same people who have always used "premium" fuel, simply because "it's premium". Also, "if it costs more, it MUST be better."

There are those here and elsewhere who would tell you, "if you can't afford the service, then you can't afford the car." They use that to defend a Lexus ES350 oil change costing $150 compared to the $30 oil change on the same engine over at the Toyota dealer.

Those people are defending their burning need to BELIEVE.

And Infiniti has chosen, brilliantly, to cater to people who WANT cash to leave their pockets. That cash is GOING to leave their pockets no matter what; Infiniti figured it might as well go into Infiniti's coffers as to Starbucks for a $5.00 cup of coffee.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

That's the rub. It comes out of a tank. Neither you, nor the service station who uses it, KNOWS for sure what brand the oil REALLY is - except for the lube shops that are owned by a particular oil company. And then you don't know for sure what line of oil they are actually using. Every oil company has their "economy grade" and their "premium" at the very least.

I know for a FACT that sometimes when you order (as a garage) a certain brand of premium multigrade oil from a distributor you do NOT get either that brand or their premium oil.

When you use packaged oil you KNOW what you are getting.

I'm NOT saying that bulk oil is in any way necessarily inferior - I used to use bulk oil a LOT in my service station and dealership days. I generally bought only directly from the oil company - when at the service station from the oil company that owned the fuel tanks - Texaco , Shell ,, Esso, etc, and at the dealerships from the single line distributor for either Castrol, Quaker State, Kendall, etc or the oil companies listed above.

When the dealership started buying from a large industrial lubricant company that distributed Quaker State, Valvoline, Castrol, and several other lines we never knew for sure what was in the tank. Can you say "brand of the week"?

The only way to know what oil you were REALLY getting was to order Kendall GT-1 - none of the "competitors'" oils were that distinctive BLUE colour!!!!

Reply to
clare

Well, at least you think you do. Further, when you get expensive oil out of a bottle, who knows if that is really what you're buying, partilcularly at a place where you're not the one opening the bottle.

Reply to
dr_jeff

FWIW, many oil processors "trade" refinery capacity. Here in Alberta, Esso Petroleum Canada processes lube oils for Husky Oil Marketing. As long as a motor oil bears an API rating......

Reply to
Jim Warman

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote

Last December I bought a new car, trading my 3 year old with 67000 trouble free miles. I do believe in proper maintenance but I'm not going to follow the dealer's recommendations. When I bought the car they gave me a service "menu" with the miles, work to be performed, and cost. Following their schedule I'd have spent an additional $2200 in that three years. As for trade in value, they never looked at the car so it was not something that had payback in resale.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

What did you do about it, Bill, and what was the result? This sort of chicanery has been found at dealerships, quick change franchises, and independent shops. I hope it isnt widespread, but it DOES happen.

Reply to
hls

At our company's fleet garage, we bought "bulk" oil, but it came packaged in 55 gallon drums. It was never delivered in a tank truck and pumped into an open bulk tank.

This level of "bulk" was substantially cheaper than buying bottled oil, and the risk of contamination was less.

Reply to
hls

In my mother's situation, I raised hell at the dealership. I did allow them to do the oil and filter change along with an apology. I do all of the work on my own cars, so it's not like I could tell them I wasn't going to do business with them again. And when the opportunity arises in the community, I tell them about what happened. For unrelated reasons, my mother sold that car just a very few months later, so what to do about her future oil changes became moot.

On the Jeep that my daughter bought, I let the previous owner know that her wonderful next door neighbor that managed the neighborhood Amerilube had been ripping her off for years and suggested that she check the other vehicles she owned that had been serviced there. Of course she could have been giving me a complete line of B.S. the whole time, but I doubt a person lieing about it would have made up the bit about the next door neighbor being the manager of the Amerilube that supposedly had done all the oil/filter changes. If she was telling the truth, hopefully the next door neighbor lost some business and reputation (personal and business) over it.

Reply to
Bill Putney

so fix the damned thing! that's not a function of temperature, that's a function of excess fuel.

that's a bullshit underinformed differentiation. all modern motor oils are detergent. it's the detergent that's hygroscopic, so you can't avoid it.

besides, synthetics flow better when cold, thus they are a better choice, not worse.

Reply to
jim beam

and there we have it folks - always check this stuff.

oils, especially conventionals, break down and start to lose their ability to hold contaminants in suspension after a while - mostly as a function of time and temperature. conventionals more quickly than synthetics. this is why you /should/ check and change your oil.

but with monitoring and use of quality lubricants, you can safely use significantly extended service intervals. i eat my own dogfood:

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Reply to
jim beam

amen, brother.

Reply to
jim beam

with conventional oil....

Reply to
jim beam

____________________________________________________________________

Using a Latin signoff motto has become a fad because it gives a writer an air of learning. Lucy Kellaway, a columnist for Financial Times, experimented with converting modern expressions to Latin. One of her samples was the expression, ''call a spade a spade''. The translation came back: ''nomina rutrum rutrum''.

Some who see the world in black and white have copied and adopted this Latinized signoff as their own. Whenever you see someone using this expression to suggest an air of learning, remember that it was conceived as a joke, and that its true translation is: ''call a shovel a shovel''.

Rodan. ______________________________________________________________

Reply to
Rodan

Flowing better at low temperatures is better, perhaps, IF you are subject to low temperatures.. I, at this point, am not.

It is not necessarily the additive that is hygroscopic. Some synthetics are more hygroscopic than hydrocarbon oils.

These are the glycol ester types of synthetics.

There is just no easy answer.

Reply to
hls

I used a lot of "barrel" oil for many years from the multi-line distributor, but then they decided they didn't want to handle barrels anymore at they put in bulk tanks with metered pumps - made it a lot wasier than pumping from a barrel into a pouring can - no more funnels required - and less, not more, possibility of contamination because there were no extra containers or stages of handling involved.

The only problem is you NEVER really knew what you were getting. They handled Valvoline, Castrol, Quaker State, and at least 2 other brands

- all of which made good oils - and also cheap oils. Which grade were we getting this month? from which company?.

Reply to
clare

On a carbureted engine with a choke it IS a function of t emperature. If the engine (I think all 454 Pontiacs were carbureted, by the way) is never warmed up the choke never comes off and fuel dilution of the oil is a VERY REAL possibility.

Actually, synthetic oils, in general, DO tend to be more hygroscopic, and provide less corrosion protection (marginally)

As for the synthetic flowing better when cold - most definitely - but is that an advantage in Miami or SanDiego?

It is only an advantage if you NEED that cold flow advantage.

In Miami or San Diago the fact that it thins less with heat and is generally more resistant to oxidation is more important.

Reply to
clare

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