Has anyone talked to the guy at Neo Synthetic?

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cvl

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I talked to this guy today and was extremely unimpressed. It was the TOP guy and he was clueless. Had no idea what HTHS was, no idea what NOACK was, no idea why I would care about either of them.

He repeatedly slammed Redline and Amsoil calling them shams and scammers who made up their own numbers.

All I wanted was the viscosity at 40C and 100C, the TBN, the HTHS and the NOACK for the 0w-5 oil. He finally agreed to look the numbers up if I sent an email, though I mentioned that my last three emails to him went unanswered.

Has anyone gotten this information before? The oil sounds like a very good oil that should be between a standard 0w-20 and 0w-30 in true viscosity. It may make an excellent oil for all of the cars requiring 5w-20 oils.
 
Well-Mobil 1, Amsoil, and even Redline puts up some pretty good numbers in many cars for many users. I wouldn't waste my time with an unknown quantity. That just me though.
 
Back in the 80's I raced 3-wheelers. Neo was one of my sponsors. They gave me cases of their 100-1 stroke oil.

I could not keep a motor together running this stuff! It was costing me races because the bike kept seizing.

I switched back to Durolube, golden Spectro and Mc1+ mixed @ 50-1.

Had no more problems.
 
Sounds like a disgruntled (ungruntled? grunt?) employee with no actual stake in the company. I really know nothing of Neo. This guy must not be in the "custom blending" (race) division either....

In his minor defense, he may think you work for the competition - I'm sure you asked using your great BITOG knowledge, and intimidated him (not kidding)
 
Cvl,

Probably if you had played dumb you would have gotten an answer. I only discovered this site in May this year but have garnered a massive amount of education here.

As a general principle, I play dumb most of the time now when dealing with people. I look the part of a big dumb country boy (6'1'-250lbs). I, however, have a very high IQ and am working on my 4th college degree. Until I learned to soft soap it, let my southern accent emerge, and not give a clue that I really knew what I was talking about, it caused more trouble than it helped. It seems that everyone is paranoid today and if you let them think they are smarter than you, it makes things easier (this is especially true with many of the professors I have had in my academic career). I also have a very confident way about me due to having survived cancer and it makes people nervous if I let it come across too strong.

Sounds like that is what happened with the NEO guy, he figured you knew more than he did and he tried to put you on the defensive and attempted to convince you that he knew more than he did. fortunately you knew what the trick was. People that know they don't know hate having it pointed out in any way at all, even indirectly.

Dan
 
Got the same ATTITUDE at Neo. They are off my list.
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Off my list also. It was actually the top guy at Neo. I was passed along twice before getting to speak with him because he "knew it all and had all the answers". Meanwhile, he didn't know a thing.
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Well when you have to slam other competitors it does not say well for the product they sell. If his product was good why would he care about the ones that are scams in his opinion? Maybe he is the scam.

Many companies top management people know very little about the product. They are suppose to manage the company and make the most $$ for the owners/stockholders etc.

Kind of makes you want to call him back and order a couple cases. When and if you are not happy, I wonder if he will be as nice or complain about some other brand that is probably hurting his sales.
 
I think I know the guy you're talking about. I spoke with him also and he was clueless. This is the distributor though, not NEO. I don't know how you speak with anyone at NEO directly...maybe visit the company.
 
The company is right here in Long Beach near my work. I am unimpressed. RedLine is also a blender, but way more savy. I did talk to the top guy and he just insisted that I should use 0W-5 in all street vehicles of any type under all conditions. I was actually interested in gear oil and they have two types at different prices. I got no real advice as to why and which one to use. The stuff may be good but the marketing isn't.
 
Have got to say I really, really, REALLY think we're being a little unfair here. The information describing all the NEO products is right there on their web site.

Ok, I agree some of their technical info is a little sketchy, but getting additional tidbits from Mobil is like pulling teeth sometimes, and a member recently posted that Redline got a little dodgy about questions regarding base stock composition. Maybe they have good reason to keep some of this stuff proprietary.

We have yet to see anyone post a single UOA on any NEO product as far as I can tell. Until we have some hard data to work with, it seems a little premature to be getting down on the company.
I'm sure you could find many success stories among race teams who have used their products--after all, they're not going to stay in business very long if they can't satisfy their most demanding customers.
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If they say the NEO 0W5 will work in any car, I have no reason to doubt their word. It only takes one successful litigation from a disgruntled customer to put a small company like this completely out of business.

[ August 07, 2003, 06:14 PM: Message edited by: Rexman ]
 
Guys,

I've seen posts that speculate NEO 0W5 is really a 0W20 or 30...how can they "legally" call it 0W5 if that is true?
 
quote:

I've seen posts that speculate NEO 0W5 is really a 0W20 or 30...how can they "legally" call it 0W5 if that is true?

Well that's my point exactly. Until we look in the horse's mouth and actually see a UOA or VOA on the stuff, all we are doing is "speculating". Maybe there is a perfectly logical reason they call it 0W5. These guys aren't dummies. Why would they want to create a lot of problems for themselves with the FTC?!
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All I'm saying is we are jumping to the unwarranted conclusion that NEO products are suspect based on an unsatisfactory interaction with one person who works there. Maybe he's not used to fielding those kind of technical questions over the phone, or maybe he just didn't know the answers at the time. That's no reason to condemn the entire company, IMO.
 
Well, guess I've done my share of ranting for one day. Man, this heat can really make a guy kinda cranky.
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So cvl, what IS the viscosity of the NEO 0W5 at 40 and 100--and the TBN, the HTHS, and the NOACK?
Let us know if you ever get a reply
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There's a bunch of us that would really like to know!
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[ August 07, 2003, 08:27 PM: Message edited by: Rexman ]
 
So far nobody here is saying the oil is no good though, just that with their poor technical support, nobody wants to try it out. Having a rude person like that as a spokesman for the company is hurting their business. If he would just answer the questions, he could generate good word of mouth. On the internet, word of mouth is EVERYTHING! Especially with oil products.
 
Went to Australian F1 Grand Prix. NEO oil everywhere. Williams etc use CV-42 grease, and along with Jaguar wheel bearing grease. Mandatory oil for X-Trac Indy g'boxes and March Engineering ETC. 80% of Le Mans entries use it. I know Range Rovers here were chopping out o'drive gear due too minimal lubrication when run consistently at high speed on Outback roads and NEO fixed that. Paul Baker is the boss man/owner I believe. Top reputation at the highest levels but maybe client communication isn't a strong point?
 
There's no real specs on the 0w-5, so that's why I called. Neo claimed that they call it 0w-5 because it's technically a racing oil and they can call it anything that they want to.

I, of course, have not received a reply to my fourth email. I'm not holding my breath.

If anyone is actually close to their location, it'd be great if someone could stop in and get the numbers.
 
quote:

If his product was good why would he care about the ones that are scams in his opinion? Maybe he is the scam.

Hmmm . . . how interesting. An armchair psychologist would say he is attributing his own scamming behavior to his comptetitors.
Good Lord-- you don't suppose they've been taking German Castrol 0W30 and rebottling it as NEO 0W5?!
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The people I've talked to at NEO have always been courteous and helpful in every way. I use their synthetic tranny fluid and it's great stuff. Go figure.

[ August 07, 2003, 12:25 PM: Message edited by: Rexman ]
 
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