Kids are on spring break so I changed their oil & filters.
Bought Costco oil but to my surprise they no longer sell dino juice. Bought Mobil 1 oil filters at Walmart but they also had no dino juice. Went to O'Reillys but their conventional was more expensive than synthetic.
I had Costco look up who had conventional oil and it turns out they discounted their last cases of Chevron 10W30 SN & 10W40 SN conventional oils to $9.97/10 quarts more than a year ago and haven't sold any conventional motor oils since then at any Costco in my area.
Huh? Since when is conventional oil hard to find in bulk? Is this a new thing?
I'm not complaining or even asking whether the $25/10 quarts Kirkland fully synthetic 5W30 SP oil is good or not as I know all about synthetic oil advantages & disadvantages over conventional gasoline engine motor oils.
I'm just asking if you've also found it hard to find conventional oil by the case at good prices (which means at your local Costco or department store)?
What matters for motor oil that is frequently changed is only three things (1) price (2) API quality (but it's really hard to find poor quality oil anyways) (3) Viscosity range (which itself only matters most in the extremes)
Conventional SN has to be about half the price to compete with SP synthetic (because synthetic lasts about twice as long and is a bit slipperier too).
I bought the one case of API SP fully synthetic 5W30 because I needed it but I generally buy a few cases when Costco gasoline motor oil goes on sale.
If we assume Costco sale pricing will perhaps be around $2 per quart for full synthetic API SP motor oil (of varying viscosity ranges) then the comparison price for the API SN dino juice has to be about $1 per quart.
At anything more than about $1 per quart the dino juice won't be worth it. It does't matter what store.
All that matters for motor oil that is frequently changed is price & API quality & viscosity range - and not the store from which you bought it.
I get mine at Walmart for ~$3.10 per qt. Nearest Walmart is 0.5 miles and Costco 4 miles away. I'm not really concerned about saving $3.00 once a year. Plus I make a list and get other things while at Walmart that they don't have at Costco. I get the oil filters at an auto parts. There are 5 auto parts within 1 mile. :)
Thanks for answering that as I also tried Walmart but found, like you did, that the prices are higher than at Costco (even before Costco sales).
Nice thing about Auto Parts Stores is they have a choice of brands. Wix (aka Napa Gold) seems to fare well when people cut them open.
At Walmart the Fram always fares poorly (cardboard tops & bottoms).
The Mobil 1, K&N and even the low cost SuperTech store brand come out differentially depending greatly on the point of view of the reviewer.
At parts stores the Bosch (aka Purolater, Boss) come out ok with the AC Delco being not much lower in build quality (lots of these are made by the same outfits as can be seen by the exact construction in the tear downs).
As with oil, with frequent oil changes the filter paper itself matters less. Even so I try to find 20 micron (not 30 micron) 99% efficiency filters. It's harder to find coil overpressure springs than plastic (or none at all). Usually orange anti-drainback valves are silicone (versus nitrile black).
I use either one. It's hard to explain without a picture but the Wix base plate is punched and threaded from the outside, while some are from the inside. The former are easier to get started. With the Toyota I'm reaching down from the top and screwing the filter on blind.
I agree with you that oil is a commodity which people obsess about. Mostly because advertisers want to give people something to obsess about.
Every brand is different but those differences won't matter much to us.
What matters mostly is how often we change it (IMHO). Which itself matters mostly based on our weather & driving patterns (IMHO).
And even that is subject to a lot of personal opinion (IMHO). Everyone makes their own assessment of what to use & when to change (IMHO).
(My personal opinion is twice a year for dino & once a year for synth). (My personal opinion is a filter change roughly about once a year.)
For me the motor oil buying choice is simple.
Price (about .50/qt for good dino juice, about twice that for synth)
Quality (any API that meets or exceeds the spec in the owners manual)
Viscosity (any SAE range that meets the spec in the owners manual)
In practice you'd have to go out of your way to find an oil that doesn't meet the spec in the owners manual so it eventually boils down to price.
Price changes over time but currently it's $2.50/qt for Costco fully synthetic (API SP, SAE 5W30, Dexos 1 gen 2) in sets of two five quart jugs.
It's harder to find a spec for oil filters but like oil it matters less when you change often (defined by me as being about yearly which is ~12K miles).
I've seen many oil filter teardowns so I avoid Fram and STP oil filters and I know that only a few manufacturers likely make most oil filters anyways and I do know that the Napa Gold (also Wix) are usually the best in those teardowns and that the Purloators at Toyota turn out to be reasonably good too (as do the AC Delcos).
The Walmart K&N, SuperTech, Mobil 1 and Fram often come out differentially as do the Bosch at times.
Mostly I look for 30um at 99% or even 20 micron if I can find it but not all boxes say and there's no spec that I know of for oil filters like there is for oil that help compare them (they're all good enough for my cars except maybe Fram).
If you know of a spec that's printed on all oil filter boxes for comparison sake like there is for oil that would be helpful for sure.
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