ConocoPhilips blended groups II+ & III ?

[trixman]

Thanks I'll look.

Although I'm thinking it may not be available regionally at Walmart.

 

[mark pruett]

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If you feel Trop Artic is the same as Motorcraft, then that's fine. Did you know its illegal for them to manufacture (2 or more) of identical oils and charge differently for each - using different labels?

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Unless it's something specific to motor oil or the oil industry, you're not correct.

This is done all the time, in many industries. Go to an Imperial Holly sugar refinery, for example. In the bagging plant, you'll see bags for Imperial, Holly, Kroger, etc... all being filled with the same ________ sugar.

The catch with your thinking is that you're assuming that you're necessarily paying more for less, and that you're getting TropArtic at Motorcraft prices.

In reality, it's probably more likely that you're getting Motorcraft for TropArtic prices. If it costs ConocoPhilips 50 cents per quart to produce the motor oil that they sell as Motorcraft at $2.00+ per quart, why not sell the same thing as TropArtic at $1.60? You won't lose any money on those sales, and you'll sell more than you would have with the single brand at the single price. It's kind of the same idea as a coupon, only they're going after price-sensitive consumers with a different brand instead of a coupon.

This is elementary stuff, really. Quality & cost don't necessarily have much to do with cost beyond meeting requisite specifications and the cost needs to be low enough to allow a reasonable profit margin.

 

[ewetho]

They do not market or thus charge the end customer for Motorcraft oil, FORD does.

Heck a while back I looked up NAPA's 5w30 and Valvoline's 5w30 they had IDENTICAL MSDS down to the control number. Only difference was the address for NAPA not ASHLAND. Now when you went to 1 Gal container required a new MSDS for the same oil.

My deduction Same spicket for both oils. Now Chevy and Pontiac sell the same car at different prices but the packaging is different. Now just compare marketing efforts and where they are sold and you can find the price differences you see. Kendall sponsors more racing than TropArtic does. So lower marketing expenses. TropArtic is the same price as other oils at gas stations. So where is the price difference side by side. ConocoPhillips does not have price control of Motorcraft. Plus the end marketer (the store) has a final say so on price to be charged.

 

[Fordiesel69]

Not that this has anything to do with much, but I had 6 qts of Motorcraft 5w30 (SL) laying around and it smelled totally different than the kendall 5w30 (SL) that I had bought for 1.99 per qt when it was at a local hardware store. I am not sure if smell has anything to do with the formulation but I would assume it is NOT the same oil.

 

[Ray H]

You're right, they're not. (and a week later the next batch of "Motorcraft" probably didn't have the same odor as your 6 quarts, either - routine formulation changes are the norm in the petroleum industry)

"As technology changes, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (fill in the blank spaces with your favorite brand name) continually improves performance through product innovation. This may result in color/odor changes periodically. Thank you for supporting our company's management and board of directors' retirement benefits package with your continued patronage."

 

[Ray H]

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...in reference there are some small variations in flashpoint while the pour points seem to have a wider variation with these differences I retract my statement on the oils being of the same specs(although mostlyh very close). Another questionable is the variations in pour point yet identical cold crank viscosities, other than '76(a target minimum?).If anyone ever gets a PDS for Motorcraft let me know. Please compare and evaluate.

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Do the differences you cite among the various C/P brands reflect a difference in formulated quality? (or a difference in representative production runs - and at that not necessarily indicative of specific C/P brands...

) As to Motorcraft oil, Ford's being lazy (or very crafty). The closest thing to a PDS I came across was on the Motorcraft site - and it showed nothing more recent in the product descriptions than oils rated at API SJ! Obviously current Motorcraft in all viscosities is labled to SM/GF-4 ratings or we wouldn't be including it in this discussion.

 

[LouDawg]

Let me add another angle to the discussion about marketing and specifications.

I've worked in manufacturing where we produced the same product from the same machines to the same internal process control limits and multiple-customer specs. But the ones that were "borderline" (i.e. closer to the upper/lower control limits) were sent to the less-critical/discriminating customer, while the "better" or closer-to-spec product was sent to the more-critical/discriminating customer. It was in the tire industry, but I won't name names.

So could it be that CP distinguishes based on actual production measurements and packages it accordingly? I don't know.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying...

 

[Mach5]

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I've worked in manufacturing where we produced the same product from the same machines to the same internal process control limits and multiple-customer specs. But the ones that were "borderline" (i.e. closer to the upper/lower control limits) were sent to the less-critical/discriminating customer, while the "better" or closer-to-spec product was sent to the more-critical/discriminating customer. It was in the tire industry, but I won't name names.

So could it be that CP distinguishes based on actual production measurements and packages it accordingly? I don't know.

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It seems like this approach would introduce a lot of uncertainty into the supply chain for the upper tier product. No guarantees regarding how often the product will hit the high side of the specifications.

 

[LouDawg]

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It seems like this approach would introduce a lot of uncertainty into the supply chain for the upper tier product. No guarantees regarding how often the product will hit the high side of the specifications.

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It's not such much having to hit the "high" side as it is *not* hitting the low side. For example, if it were in the nominal to high range, it'd be Brand A, and if it were below nominal or some lower limit, but still within control and within spec, then it'd be Brand B.

Again, I don't know if that's the case...just speculation.