Flavors of the year from BITOG past..

Pennzoil motor oil
hardcore302

hardcore302

Joined
Nov 23, 2009
Messages
3,066
Location
Suffolk County, NY
Ive been a member for a while, but admittedly off and on.
I recently saw a comment about this site's flavor of the year, which got me thinking: are there any BITOG historians or people with good memory that can date our flavors of the year? I remember Kendall, Motorcraft, and Castrol green sticking out in my memory. I think it would be fun reminiscing!
 
Just thinking out loud here...

When I first joined (2002) Mobil was moving to "SuperSyn" from Tri-Synthetic, which many felt was the beginning of a downgrade by Mobil (XOM). George from AVLube said a Mobil rep at that time told him they were trying to move away from esters as newer co-base oils were becoming available. George shared a lot of good info how NASCAR was running Mobil 1 0w5 as early as the year 2000 or before.

German Castrol became really popular on here for good reason. Was a very good oil. 2005 or so? Can't remember.

Motorcraft was popular when 20 grades started going mainstream. I remember an article about how CP formulated Motorcraft 5w20 and it outperformed their own 5w30.

Mobil 1 going to group III was a surprise to many. @Tom NJ was able to share information on that in the early 2000's.

Katrina/Mobil 1 IVA vs Valvoline was a big issue at the time. Much to do about nothing but some bad Katrina batches apparently made their way into the supply.

Renwable Lubricants with their plant based ester oil was very popular for a short time. Terry D and some guy with an Audi were doing testing on it.

In 2012 Mobil was first to market with LSPI friendly chemistry (Mg/Ca).

HPL came around 2020 and has been a big success on here since.

Valvoline Restore and Protect - probably the only truly innovative oil to be released in the last who knows how many years.....obviously very popular to this day.

*Interesting that through the last 25 years, there have been many formulation changes but one brand comes to mind that has pretty much stayed the same - Red Line. Not sure what that means other than they must really trust their formulation.


I know I'm missing things so I'll be curious what others add.....
 
Popular oils that I remember:
- GC 0W-30 and the leprechauns and all the shenanigans and lore surrounding it was big when I joined.
- Motorcraft 5W-20 had a following for a while, as @buster notes
- The RLI oils with Terry Dyson and AudiJunkie had some time in the sun
- Redline white bottle 5W-30, the "heavy" 5W-30 was popular for quite a bit, I had a decent stash of it
- TGMO 0W-20 and the "Caterham Blend" (mix), was a thing for a bit, mixing the insanely high VI TGMO product with Mobil 1 0W-40
- Mobil 1 0W-40 has had several periods of extreme popularity owing to its universality and is still recommended quite frequently
- Pennzoil Ultra 5W-30 with its super low Noack when it went GTL was a thing for a while, but then SOPUS changed the formula
- There was a brief period where Pennzoil conventional was claimed to do all manner of things it didn't, and was also claimed to be secretly loaded with surplus GTL that made it super extra awesome! It was quite popular during this period.
- Valvoline Premium Blue Restore 10W-30 discovered as a cleaning oil, was almost unobtanium, but folks were trying very hard to find it. Generated quite a stir.
- HPL's entire product line when Dave joined the forum and started directly interacting with board members, including blending bespoke offerings for members (like me), popularly from this still persists.
- And of course the current darling of the hour, Valvoline Restore and Protect in various grades
 
I have a bunch of that old Pennzoil conventional from the secret GTL days where @KCJeep probably started the fraud himself...
I will say my mother had a Elantra i believe a 97 model with nearly 200k on it with tons of Jiffy lube oil changes and I changed it with some Pennzoil 5w20 conventional...

The dipstick was a varnished absolute disaster from the high quality Jiffy slop..

So I checked the oil again at around 3k miles and it wasn't a oil burner but what freaked me out was the dipstick was like Chrome..spotless

I'd have to put it on a buffer to get it like that... the yellow bottle had something going on for sure...
 
I remember this was hot for a minute, there's been a lot.

1776437439153.webp
 
I remember the HDEO craze, of which I still participate in almost any engine I can.
I think that was circa 2015 ish for the T5 and T6 rush.
 
buster said:
Just thinking out loud here...

When I first joined (2002) Mobil was moving to "SuperSyn" from Tri-Synthetic, which many felt was the beginning of a downgrade by Mobil (XOM). George from AVLube said a Mobil rep at that time told him they were trying to move away from esters as newer co-base oils were becoming available. George shared a lot of good info how NASCAR was running Mobil 1 0w5 as early as the year 2000 or before.

German Castrol became really popular on here for good reason. Was a very good oil. 2005 or so? Can't remember.

Motorcraft was popular when 20 grades started going mainstream. I remember an article about how CP formulated Motorcraft 5w20 and it outperformed their own 5w30.

Mobil 1 going to group III was a surprise to many. @Tom NJ was able to share information on that in the early 2000's.

Katrina/Mobil 1 IVA vs Valvoline was a big issue at the time. Much to do about nothing but some bad Katrina batches apparently made their way into the supply.

Renwable Lubricants with their plant based ester oil was very popular for a short time. Terry D and some guy with an Audi were doing testing on it.

In 2012 Mobil was first to market with LSPI friendly chemistry (Mg/Ca).

HPL came around 2020 and has been a big success on here since.

Valvoline Restore and Protect - probably the only truly innovative oil to be released in the last who knows how many years.....obviously very popular to this day.

*Interesting that through the last 25 years, there have been many formulation changes but one brand comes to mind that has pretty much stayed the same - Red Line. Not sure what that means other than they must really trust their formulation.


I know I'm missing things so I'll be curious what others add.....
Click to expand...
I used the wayback machine and redline D4 PDS has been unchanged since it first came to market in i believe 1998
 
SC Maintenance said:
Chevron Supreme was popular if you go way back. I was not a member but I read the forum way back when. I still use it in my Xterra. Just ordered some.

I remember when the Wix black can was a well liked filter as well.
Click to expand...
I have a ton of that stuff.....I no longer use it but should start...
 
I remember when TropArtic and Pennzoil conventional were the forum favorites. Also AutoRX for cleaning.

Conventional oils like Mobil Clean 5000, Quaker State conventional, Pennzoil conventional, Valvoline conventional, Castrol GTX were fan favorites back then for $10-$14 for 5 qts.

I miss the old days 😄
 
OVERKILL said:
Popular oils that I remember:
- GC 0W-30 and the leprechauns and all the shenanigans and lore surrounding it was big when I joined.
- Motorcraft 5W-20 had a following for a while, as @buster notes
- The RLI oils with Terry Dyson and AudiJunkie had some time in the sun
- Redline white bottle 5W-30, the "heavy" 5W-30 was popular for quite a bit, I had a decent stash of it
- TGMO 0W-20 and the "Caterham Blend" (mix), was a thing for a bit, mixing the insanely high VI TGMO product with Mobil 1 0W-40
- Mobil 1 0W-40 has had several periods of extreme popularity owing to its universality and is still recommended quite frequently
- Pennzoil Ultra 5W-30 with its super low Noack when it went GTL was a thing for a while, but then SOPUS changed the formula
- There was a brief period where Pennzoil conventional was claimed to do all manner of things it didn't, and was also claimed to be secretly loaded with surplus GTL that made it super extra awesome! It was quite popular during this period.
- Valvoline Premium Blue Restore 10W-30 discovered as a cleaning oil, was almost unobtanium, but folks were trying very hard to find it. Generated quite a stir.
- HPL's entire product line when Dave joined the forum and started directly interacting with board members, including blending bespoke offerings for members (like me), popularly from this still persists.
- And of course the current darling of the hour, Valvoline Restore and Protect in various grades
Click to expand...
ESP 0w-30 seems to be the new FS 0w-40 universal choice
 
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