A heads-up for those of you who buy motor oil on an as-needed basis, "Lube Report" reported the possibility of a temporarily sanctioned dumbing-down of motor oil quality. Without quoting the entire article, the salient point is of the API's decision on Monday to issue an "Emergency Provisional Licensing Amendment":
"The Oct. 3 teleconference did not address how or if the public should be made aware of EPL, but automakers think they should be. “API should consider somehow making information available as to the oils which are being marketed under EPL,” ILSAC’s Olree wrote to API. “Even though these oils will presumably be marketed for only a short period of time, the fact that these oils do not meet all the same requirements of ‘normally’ licensed oils should somehow be acknowledged.”
BP’s Barbara Dennis concurred that the public should be informed, writing, “Unless API identifies EPLs separately from fully certified licenses on their public website, consumers will be entirely unable to ascertain whether a given license upon which they rely is supported by full data or not."
Don't panic, but y'all might wanna consider purchases now while still fully-licensed product is still in the retail channel.
"The Oct. 3 teleconference did not address how or if the public should be made aware of EPL, but automakers think they should be. “API should consider somehow making information available as to the oils which are being marketed under EPL,” ILSAC’s Olree wrote to API. “Even though these oils will presumably be marketed for only a short period of time, the fact that these oils do not meet all the same requirements of ‘normally’ licensed oils should somehow be acknowledged.”
BP’s Barbara Dennis concurred that the public should be informed, writing, “Unless API identifies EPLs separately from fully certified licenses on their public website, consumers will be entirely unable to ascertain whether a given license upon which they rely is supported by full data or not."
Don't panic, but y'all might wanna consider purchases now while still fully-licensed product is still in the retail channel.