How bad were oils in the 1980’s?

[endeavor to persevere]

The only thing I remember from back then (high school mid 70's) was not to use Pennzoil because it had wax in it.

The word paraffin is a very common and basic term for base mineral oil. The MSDS sheets for many motor oils use the word paraffin to describe the main oil ingredient...as in "SOLVENT-DEWAXED HEAVY PARAFFINIC PETROLEUM," which is how Valvoline phrases it in their MSDS sheets.

Paraffin is the proper organic chemistry word for aliphatic hydrocarbons...more commonly known as oil. It is also the correct name for wax and candles. But there is as much difference between paraffin wax and paraffin oil as there is between a chestnut horse and a horse chestnut. They just aint the same thing. Don't matter whether you're talking about Pennzoil, Castrol, Valvoline or your wife's Christmas candles.

 

[Tom NJ]

Mobil 1 was a PAO/POE with a lot of ZDP back then. Tried and true.

True for the 70s. In the 80s with SF they were PAO/Diester, then back to PAO/POE in the 90s.

 

[Tom NJ]

Do you or anybody else remember what the oil would have looked like for the boutique brands like red line, amsoil or neo? Or they also in metal like cans or had they already converted over to plastic? All I remember when I was real little was that you changed oil every 2 or 3,000 miles religiously.

I started selling POE to Redline in 1980 and at that time they claimed their oils were POE based (but didn't state percentages). Amsoil was all Diester in the 1970s and switched to PAO/Diester around 1980ish. Neo was all Diester in the 70s and into the early 1980s - not sure thereafter. 10W-40 was the most popular grade.

Adpacs were mostly Calcium based detergents with ZDDP at around 1,000 to 1,200 ppm Phosphorus.

 

[Tom NJ]

IIRC, it may have been related to VII content, and the 10W-40 had a lot more VII in it.

The QS incident in 1981/82 was related to the type of VII used, not the quantity. It was a relatively new type and it was found to gel in a particular temperature profile, which came to be known as the Sioux Falls Cycle (where many of the engines seized). The temperature profile involved a slow cooling and the stalling of temperature drop for a period. The pour point test utilized a more rapid cooling and missed this tendency to gel. The MRV test was developed with a slower cooling to catch it.

 

[Tom NJ]

I did a Google books search for "gm" and "10w-40" and all that comes up are Popular Mechanics and Popular Science articles about GM not wanting it used for the reasons of deposits. And some "snippet" views from other publications which from the limited snippet view appear to be about the same thing.

The back story for the demise of the 10W-40 grade is not all related to ring sticking. The CAFE regulations back then were putting a lot of financial pressure on the car manufacturers to improve fuel economy, and every little bit was important. Lighter oils were shown to kick in 1-2% of fuel economy improvement, and so it was in the interest of the car manufacturers use 5w30s in their CAFE testing. The EPA, however, would only allow it if the product was recommended in the owner’s manual, was readily available to consumers, and was sold at a reasonable price. 5w30 was not.

Oil retailers rated shelf space by profit per square foot, and products that did not move were given little to no space. Back then 10W-40 was considered the ideal oil grade for decades and it was well established as the leading seller, whereas 5w30s were a suspiciously thin new grade with little demand. In order to meet the EPA requirements, car manufacturers needed to get the 5w30s positioned on retail shelves, which meant getting 10W-40s off the shelves to make space. Owner’s manual recommendations mostly affected new cars and did not create enough demand for 5w30s to justify shelf space as quickly as it was needed. Therefore 10W-40s had to go.

GM cleverly used some studies showing ring sticking as being more prevalent among 10W-40s (due to the higher level of polymeric VI improvers) to ban the grade and launch an industry campaign to reduce demand for 10W-40s and open shelf space for 5w30s. It worked and the EPA began allowing 5w30s in the CAFE testing, saving the car companies millions of dollars.

I don’t doubt that ring sticking was an issue at some level, but I doubt it was the driver in this campaign.

 

[ThatNavyGuy]

Dad was (and still is) a Pennzoil guy. Used Pennzoil conventional straight 30-weight in all our GM vehicles back in the 80s, never had an engine problem in any of them. As for the rest of the vehicle components…well I’m sure a lot of us can remember the garbage quality control of domestic cars back then.

 

[cheesepuffs2]

The back story for the demise of the 10W-40 grade is not all related to ring sticking. The CAFE regulations back then were putting a lot of financial pressure on the car manufacturers to improve fuel economy, and every little bit was important. Lighter oils were shown to kick in 1-2% of fuel economy improvement, and so it was in the interest of the car manufacturers use 5w30s in their CAFE testing. The EPA, however, would only allow it if the product was recommended in the owner’s manual, was readily available to consumers, and was sold at a reasonable price. 5w30 was not.

Oil retailers rated shelf space by profit per square foot, and products that did not move were given little to no space. Back then 10W-40 was considered the ideal oil grade for decades and it was well established as the leading seller, whereas 5w30s were a suspiciously thin new grade with little demand. In order to meet the EPA requirements, car manufacturers needed to get the 5w30s positioned on retail shelves, which meant getting 10W-40s off the shelves to make space. Owner’s manual recommendations mostly affected new cars and did not create enough demand for 5w30s to justify shelf space as quickly as it was needed. Therefore 10W-40s had to go.

GM cleverly used some studies showing ring sticking as being more prevalent among 10W-40s (due to the higher level of polymeric VI improvers) to ban the grade and launch an industry campaign to reduce demand for 10W-40s and open shelf space for 5w30s. It worked and the EPA began allowing 5w30s in the CAFE testing, saving the car companies millions of dollars.

I don’t doubt that ring sticking was an issue at some level, but I doubt it was the driver in this campaign.

First of all, this is fantastic insight and I appreciate your posts.

So back in the day 10W-40 was considered the best grade, and then thinner 5w30s had to be implemented for CAFE reasons, not for reasons beneficial to the engine.

Then years later we'd see the implementation of 5W and 0W-20s rising in popularity for seemingly the same reasons.

Now we're at a point where 0W-16 is becoming a more common factory fill, and 0W-8 isn't far behind.

My question is, are we, the consumers, actually benefitting from this aside from those 1-2% fuel economy gains on paper? I can't help but feel that these ever thinner oils are not intended to better protect engine surfaces from wear, but rather that the industry and CAFE are ok with sacrificing some wear to meet the tightening CAFE standards above all else, and that really 30 weights or even 40 are better for our engines when fuel economy is removed from the equation.

Am I wrong about that, or is that what's happening?

 

[kschachn]

The word paraffin is a very common and basic term for base mineral oil. The MSDS sheets for many motor oils use the word paraffin to describe the main oil ingredient...as in "SOLVENT-DEWAXED HEAVY PARAFFINIC PETROLEUM," which is how Valvoline phrases it in their MSDS sheets.

Paraffin is the proper organic chemistry word for aliphatic hydrocarbons...more commonly known as oil. It is also the correct name for wax and candles. But there is as much difference between paraffin wax and paraffin oil as there is between a chestnut horse and a horse chestnut. They just aint the same thing. Don't matter whether you're talking about Pennzoil, Castrol, Valvoline or your wife's Christmas candles.

Yep. PAO is a paraffin.

 

[Tom NJ]

First of all, this is fantastic insight and I appreciate your posts.

So back in the day 10W-40 was considered the best grade, and then thinner 5w30s had to be implemented for CAFE reasons, not for reasons beneficial to the engine.

Then years later we'd see the implementation of 5W and 0W-20s rising in popularity for seemingly the same reasons.

Now we're at a point where 0W-16 is becoming a more common factory fill, and 0W-8 isn't far behind.

My question is, are we, the consumers, actually benefitting from this aside from those 1-2% fuel economy gains on paper? I can't help but feel that these ever thinner oils are not intended to better protect engine surfaces from wear, but rather that the industry and CAFE are ok with sacrificing some wear to meet the tightening CAFE standards above all else, and that really 30 weights or even 40 are better for our engines when fuel economy is removed from the equation.

Am I wrong about that, or is that what's happening?

Using a 0W-16 oil in a 1980s engine likely would have been a disaster, but times have changed. Yes the financial incentive for thinner oils continues, but changes in oil additives and engine designs to accommodate these thinner oils reduces the probability of increased wear in modern engines. While car manufacturers want to avoid CAFE fines, they also want to avoid recalls, warranty repairs, and loss of a quality reputation. Each company develops data for their engines and decides on the grade of oil that provides the best balance.

 

[loneryder]

I wondered why my dad told me don't ever use Pennzoil. I always wondered why, but to this day I won't. I actually useds PUP once - i figured its Shell now so must be OK. Still felt guilty the whole time, changed it out early.

I heard the opposite. Pens and QS were Pennsylvania crude oils and were said to be the best. I remember Esso oil being full of wax.

 

[Tom NJ]

Paraffin is the proper organic chemistry word for aliphatic hydrocarbons...more commonly known as oil. It is also the correct name for wax and candles. But there is as much difference between paraffin wax and paraffin oil as there is between a chestnut horse and a horse chestnut. They just aint the same thing. Don't matter whether you're talking about Pennzoil, Castrol, Valvoline or your wife's Christmas candles.

Straight chain paraffins have a tendency to form wax crystals when cooled. Branched paraffins such as PAO do not as the branching bends the molecules and prevents stacking into crystal structures. Mineral oil is a complex mixture of different paraffins and cyclic compounds. For higher quality base oils the game is to reduce the straight chain paraffins and certain cyclic compounds and increase the percentage of branched paraffins (think Group III).

 

[OVERKILL]

The back story for the demise of the 10W-40 grade is not all related to ring sticking. The CAFE regulations back then were putting a lot of financial pressure on the car manufacturers to improve fuel economy, and every little bit was important. Lighter oils were shown to kick in 1-2% of fuel economy improvement, and so it was in the interest of the car manufacturers use 5w30s in their CAFE testing. The EPA, however, would only allow it if the product was recommended in the owner’s manual, was readily available to consumers, and was sold at a reasonable price. 5w30 was not.

Oil retailers rated shelf space by profit per square foot, and products that did not move were given little to no space. Back then 10W-40 was considered the ideal oil grade for decades and it was well established as the leading seller, whereas 5w30s were a suspiciously thin new grade with little demand. In order to meet the EPA requirements, car manufacturers needed to get the 5w30s positioned on retail shelves, which meant getting 10W-40s off the shelves to make space. Owner’s manual recommendations mostly affected new cars and did not create enough demand for 5w30s to justify shelf space as quickly as it was needed. Therefore 10W-40s had to go.

GM cleverly used some studies showing ring sticking as being more prevalent among 10W-40s (due to the higher level of polymeric VI improvers) to ban the grade and launch an industry campaign to reduce demand for 10W-40s and open shelf space for 5w30s. It worked and the EPA began allowing 5w30s in the CAFE testing, saving the car companies millions of dollars.

I don’t doubt that ring sticking was an issue at some level, but I doubt it was the driver in this campaign.

Thanks for the history!

Reminds me a bit of the Mobil slides showing significantly higher coking with even their own cheaper oils compared to their 0W-40 (essentially what GM demonstrated with the higher levels of VII in the 10W-40's). It wouldn't be hard to pick some bog-standard el-cheapo 10W-40's chalk-full of VII and using extremely cheap and light bases to demonstrate the "issue".

We've all see member pics of engines that are clearly varnish farms with whatever lube has been used, and others that are spotless. My experience has been that engines with significant varnish in the valvetrain, look much, MUCH worse in the ring land area. Though admittedly, my range of exposure on this has been mostly limited, if not confined, to Ford and GM V8's.

Going back 3 or 4 decades, the standards imposed by the API were far less stringent than they are now, so I can only imagine the range of lube quality that existed at the time.

 

[Needleman]

Back in the day CCS and MRV weren't used for cold temp performance, it was based on pour point, which proved to be wildly inaccurate in certainly situations. One of those situations was encountered during that winter that somebody recounted where, despite the oil being above its pour point, it failed to pump. I believe this was a Quaker State product IIRC. This resulted in a huge pile of failed engines.

So, the Winter rating was technically "accurate" but the method by which it was derived was insufficient. This led to an overhaul of the Winter rating system.

Mrv-tp1 was created due to this.

 

[Needleman]

The QS incident in 1981/82 was related to the type of VII used, not the quantity. It was a relatively new type and it was found to gel in a particular temperature profile, which came to be known as the Sioux Falls Cycle (where many of the engines seized). The temperature profile involved a slow cooling and the stalling of temperature drop for a period. The pour point test utilized a more rapid cooling and missed this tendency to gel. The MRV test was developed with a slower cooling to catch it.

Mrv tp-1

 

[userfriendly]

I was a Quaker State 10w30 guy for the first few years, but switched over to Gulf 10w30 in 1980 because it was "Hydrotreated". I wonder if this was an early attempt to further refine conventional to make it mimic synthetic.

Gulf was bought out by PetroCan not long after.

It was more like a feeding frenzy on Gulf Canada.