API finds nearly half of certified oils have issues

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There’s a brand on here that will have much less variation than most brands, because they measure all incoming product for accuracy, and blend the final product by weight, not volume. Then they also test the final product to ensure everything is within a tight tolerance.

This ensures bottle to bottle, batch to batch variation is likely less than the measurement accuracy of the testing equipment. They’re certainly not the only place to take this level of care, but they hang their hat on delivering exactly what they promise. To me, trust is worth the couple extra bucks it costs for their products. 👍🏻
Those are the brands I’ve started to support!! 🇺🇸
 
Great thread, thanks.

Some of the key words for me----->"fast moving / high volume / low margin products."

Looks like it's highly likely that my cars and many other people's cars i've help maintain over the years past have been safe from these shenanigans.

Of interest to me though are the transmission shops out there. The one i had(before moving on to a totally unrelated, totally different business) and the ones i worked for. I don't think they're immune to the issues mentioned here. bulk.

Redline D4 for me!
 
The issue is quite simple to avoid.

Buy motor oil made in the USA.
Make sure it is at least DexOS 1 rigorously certified. (IMO a better spec than API)
Then you don´t need to worry about the API specs, cause they are legit.
 
All oils are statistically identical according to Blackstone. Automakers recommended viscosities are meaningless. Brands don’t matter. UOA aren’t actually good at measuring wear properly. API licenses mean nothing. Why are we even here? Our life is lie.
You’re leaving out parts of that though. Yes they test the same per Blackstone because a spectrographic analysis doesn’t determine relative oil quality. It’s the wrong test for that. Automaker recommended grades are influenced by factors outside of performance. And UOA do measure wear but the wear due to the oil (again trying to determine relative quality) is buried and conflated with everything else that contributes to that wear.
 
Makes me wonder what kind of oil was being purchased at a shop I used to help at. Shop owner bought "cheapest conventional 5w30 diesel oil money could buy" for every vehicle serviced, because he didnt believe in "that synthetic stuff". His bulk tanks are the ones that come to mind. Every car had heavy varnish visible from oil fill holes. Customers lined up to pay top dollar. Bulk tanks only filled when a special price was available
Been there before.. selling 5W30 for 5W20 when 5W20 first came out.. supposed to be selling a certain brand, and it wasn't.. owner was crooked as a three dollar bill
 
This thread was a good read. Entertaining, at least. It's rather pathetic when you can't meet a 15% Noack spec. I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but this is just another reason why I don't care one iota for API certs. It's essentially just an honor system where only 3% of the products on the market are tested annually. I like transparency. I don't care what cert an oil has, I want to know how it actually performed. If a brand is unwilling to give that information, or they themselves don't even know how it performs (ie: simply "pass" instead of an actual value or white washing data), it's highly unlikely I'm going to buy their product.

I posted this in another thread, but will share it here too in case others didn't see it and since it's relevant to the OP. This is Shell Rotella T6 5W-40. The max foam allowed for CK-4 is 20 ml (sequence II). It produced >50 ml of foam.

Rotella T6 5W-40.jpg
 
a while back i purchased 5w-30 pcmo royal purple,well i called them with a bunch of questions about their product as i saw a number of negative responses on bitog,,well after a rather informative conversation with a person at Calumet (Royal Purple) i am convinced they not only test their product properly in lab and field according to the published claims and certifications ,,but they do have a very good product, i would not hesitate to go with Royal Purple from what information i received.
 
This is a very good thread.

Foxtrot is right that there are blenders who routinely make API SJ and SL motor oils.”Technically ” still API current but well off current API SP standards.

Warren Oil sells then and so does Smitty’s Supply.

Having sqid that when PQIA tested Warren Oil synthetic blend oils that were current API specification at the time all those oils passsed those tests. Every single time. Smitty’s Supply with their Super S version oils passed every single time has well. Cam2 synthetic blend oils were tested routinely by PQIA and those oils passed every single time too. When Warren Oils full synthetic Lubrigold Dexos approved oils were tested against current specs and including Dexos specs regarding Noack Dexos specification Lubrigold full synthetic oils passed every time too. Same for Super S Dexos approved oils as well.

Do I believe that certain local or even regional chains or shops buy large bulk oils that are not real “ current “ API SP ? Aka API SL or SJ

Absolutely… I believe that is true like Foxtrot has stated on here.

Should it be illegal to make or sell “ technically “ current API spec motor oils like API SJ or SL ? Or non detergent oils ?

An argument can be made for that.

I also believe though that people aka local shops or regional buyers buying the cheapest oils available that are NOT truly legitimate current API SP and yet NOT telling their customers what they are really getting put in their vehicles… Those people or companies should also be gone after as well.
 
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