How does Mobil make such a high performing oil so cheap? In my car club, with lots of cars making over 700hp, its the most popular oil by far.....I tried turning some members to try botiques, like HPL but they get great results with the Mobil product.....mass production brings cost down?
How Do they Make Mobil 1 0w40 FS So Cheap?
- Thread starter FranklinJL
- Start date
That would be my guess.
Yup. With economies of scale you can drive the price down a bunch. They could lower the price more if they were to ditch oem licenses for meets or exceeds and I'd trust them to be honest but their partnerships with oem's and the race teams they have wouldn't allow them to do that and still partner with them.
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2024
- Messages
- 242
Quaker State Euro is another example.
Serious economies of scale when you sell the same oil under different labels. The lowest price will be the least advertised.
Serious economies of scale when you sell the same oil under different labels. The lowest price will be the least advertised.
edyvw
$50 site donor 2026
Actually approvals are drop in the bucket.
R&D is where cost is. It would not make a dent to give up let’s say VW approval.
I wish it was cheap over here! 5 litres will cost you around ~£60 or $80 US at todays rate. As a comparison, Fuchs Titan GT1 XTL Flex 3 5w40 which has LL04, VW 511, Porsche C40 approval etc costs half as much.
Not seeing a price difference at Walmart between Mobil 1 0W40 and 0W30 ESP in my area, although best pricing I have found.
Just imagine how much they spend on advertising/marketing and if they reduced that, they could pass on that savings in the form of lower shelf price.... Oh wait !! Haha ! Can't believe I even said that !
LOL
Would love to hear @Foxtrot08 take on it.
Exxon Mobil is vertically integrated. They own base oil, they co-own infinium with shell for additives so they really don't have to outsource much. They literally have access to everything that they need
Define “expensive” and “inexpensive” first.
At ~$25 a 5 quart jug (Amazon, retail) - thats $20 a gallon. Which is still crazy expensive in the wholesale world.
Now, even at wholesale cost it’s still expensive. But you have to account for $6 in packaging. And even then it’s $10 a gallon more expensive than a similar 5w30 D1G3 licensed full synthetic product.
So 0w40 isn’t cheap. It just has over all, less margin on it.
Its cheap compared to everything else......so all the other products were really getting killed on lol
I looked around real quick. Castrol Edge 0w40, Pennzoil 0w40 from various sources are all about that same ~$25-30 USD range.
I would guess their blending costs are all similar. And similar to mine. As, at least with Castrol and Shell they use third party blenders for everything.
So the margin just isn’t there on 0w40 compared to your 0w20 / 5w20 / 5w30 full synthetics.
I also know what Havoline 0w40 is at the wholesale level, to compare it against. And sure my pricing on Havoline may not be the same as Walmarts, for comparison sake. So I’m going to say it’s just a lower margin product.
That's what I said years ago.
Who do you blend for?
I bet it would get more expensive quick, if Mobil ever decides to "fix" that built-in initial sacrificial shear. 
It does hold the viscosity pretty well for a normal or even extended OCI afterwards 
, but that initial viscosity drop does scare a lot of UOA newbies 
It does hold the viscosity pretty well for a normal or even extended OCI afterwards , but that initial viscosity drop does scare a lot of UOA newbies In HDEO, people hate on Rotella based on their gross advertising budget.Just imagine how much they spend on advertising/marketing and if they reduced that, they could pass on that savings in the form of lower shelf price.... Oh wait !! Haha ! Can't believe I even said that !
Yet, like Mobil, I'm sure it's far less on a per quart basis than the boutiques/specialty blends.
At $24.xx for 5qts on the walmart shelf, I'm sure the blended product is $2 a quart with the remainder for bottling, distribution, and retail markup.
