I No Longer Trust Blackstone Labs

Was this via the prepaid USPS label on the BS bottle? It's crazy how much slower USPS is when using this. It's as if every employee who touches it is obligated to open a full-blown investigation. I think I was averaging 2-3 weeks delivery on the several I shipped that way. The last two I stuck in a small box with USPS priority, paid ~$5 and it got there in 3-4 days with no fuss.
Yes, I just dumped a pre-paid bottle into the box. I should have taken a picture of the label or written the tracking number down. Oh well. It's just oil. I can't imagine anything has changed. It might be at Blackstone - or it might not. I dunno.

I should know better. Earlier this year I send a Priority Mail envelope (with important docs in it) to Philadelphia. It took 29 days to get to it's destination. I had a tracer case going about week three.

I'm going to stop using USPS.
 
Was this via the prepaid USPS label on the BS bottle? It's crazy how much slower USPS is when using this. It's as if every employee who touches it is obligated to open a full-blown investigation. I think I was averaging 2-3 weeks delivery on the several I shipped that way. The last two I stuck in a small box with USPS priority, paid ~$5 and it got there in 3-4 days with no fuss.
Yes or a padded envelope.
 
Yes, I just dumped a pre-paid bottle into the box. I should have taken a picture of the label or written the tracking number down. Oh well. It's just oil. I can't imagine anything has changed. It might be at Blackstone - or it might not. I dunno.

I should know better. Earlier this year I send a Priority Mail envelope (with important docs in it) to Philadelphia. It took 29 days to get to it's destination. I had a tracer case going about week three.

I'm going to stop using USPS.
It once took two months for a pre-paid bottle of mine to make it to Blackstone. It made the trip from Dallas to Houston two or three times before it ever started going the right direction.

The next pre-paid bottle I mailed made it in three days. Go figure.
 
I'll make one observation. In their "averages" categories, the averages even for the same oils in VOAs submitted by different people often come back different and sometimes significantly different. How can that be? Maybe I don't understand how they get these numbers.
 
I'll make one observation. In their "averages" categories, the averages even for the same oils in VOAs submitted by different people often come back different and sometimes significantly different. How can that be? Maybe I don't understand how they get these numbers.
Because UOAs aren't about the oil they are about the specific engine and the specific operating conditions.

Plus as I learned in statistics, averages are generally meaningless since an average is merely the midpoint of two extremes. It doesn't mean anything actually lives there.
 
Because UOAs aren't about the oil they are about the specific engine and the specific operating conditions.

Plus as I learned in statistics, averages are generally meaningless since an average is merely the midpoint of two extremes. It doesn't mean anything actually lives there.

A mass produced item using formulas most certainly should be able to produce a repeatable and reliably consistent average within a range. That's what formulas provide. A VOA (not UOA) that tests say 10 samples of Chevron 5w20 synthetic high mileage, should uniformly get a mean, average, or whatever is appropriate to best articulate the composition. If there's a actual inconsistent degree, it should be noted that it's all over the map and unable to be deliver a consistent formula- handy info for the user.
 
I apologize then, I thought it was for UOA regardless of the sample. I didn't know they kept a separate database for VOA universal averages.

 
I'll make one observation. In their "averages" categories, the averages even for the same oils in VOAs submitted by different people often come back different and sometimes significantly different. How can that be? Maybe I don't understand how they get these numbers.
On VOAs, Blackstone's Universal Averages for that GRADE of oil, not for the specific brand. So it's all brands and types of 0W-30, for example.
 
On VOAs, Blackstone's Universal Averages for that GRADE of oil, not for the specific brand. So it's all brands and types of 0W-30, for example.
Good to know, thank you. So it is a bit more specific than the averages for a UOA which apparently lump all the UOA results together.
 
Not that I don’t trust them but, they took 7 business days after receiving my voa to test it. At $40x2 I’d like a quicker turnaround. Napa/wix seems to test within a day or two from receiving and $16 tbn included to 🥾,

how long did yours take after they got it?
I used Polaris for the first time. Sent the sample towards the end of the day last Friday and just got the results - 5 days including a weekend. Last time I sent Blackstone a UOA it took +3 weeks.
 
I used Polaris for the first time. Sent the sample towards the end of the day last Friday and just got the results - 5 days including a weekend. Last time I sent Blackstone a UOA it took +3 weeks.
I’m more curious about how quickly they test after receiving. I’m guessing a day or 2 for Polaris, which is great and along the lines of Napa. My last blackstone was 7 business days after receiving, 9 days if you include the weekend.

oh, and they never responded to the 2 contact emails I sent through their contact page.
 
I’m more curious about how quickly they test after receiving. I’m guessing a day or 2 for Polaris, which is great and along the lines of Napa. My last blackstone was 7 business days after receiving, 9 days if you include the weekend.

oh, and they never responded to the 2 contact emails I sent through their contact page.
Blackstone had my sample for 10 days.
 
Looking at the OPs report I know who did the analysis.:rolleyes:
IMHO if you are going to insult anyone directly at least make sure they have the option to return a comment . :mad:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



During the summer months Blackstone Labs is the most busy and at times gets back logged form all the samples to perform an analysis on.

Shipping samples to Blackstone Labs:

I have dealt with Blackstone Labs for decades and spoken many times with the owner Ray before his passing and now his son and daughter. Recently Blackstone Labs made a change to their kits that seems to drastically improve the time it takes USPS to deliver samples – the black mailer now goes into a Tyvek envelope, because of this those samples rarely take longer than 3 days to arrive to Blackstone Labs. It was suspected or thought because the mail views those black bottles with suspicion so putting it into an Tyvek envelope seems to make a world of difference. With summer almost over as always Blackstone Labs won’t be sampling so many boats, airplanes, and motorcycles, and will be able to get back to their fast turnaround time.
 
Looking at the OPs report I know who did the analysis.:rolleyes:
IMHO if you are going to insult anyone directly at least make sure they have the option to return a comment . :mad:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



During the summer months Blackstone Labs is the most busy and at times gets back logged form all the samples to perform an analysis on.

Shipping samples to Blackstone Labs:

I have dealt with Blackstone Labs for decades and spoken many times with the owner Ray before his passing and now his son and daughter. Recently Blackstone Labs made a change to their kits that seems to drastically improve the time it takes USPS to deliver samples – the black mailer now goes into a Tyvek envelope, because of this those samples rarely take longer than 3 days to arrive to Blackstone Labs. It was suspected or thought because the mail views those black bottles with suspicion so putting it into an Tyvek envelope seems to make a world of difference. With summer almost over as always Blackstone Labs won’t be sampling so many boats, airplanes, and motorcycles, and will be able to get back to their fast turnaround time.
I wonder if they will send just the Tyvek envelopes if you're sitting on a bunch of sample kits. I've got 8 that they sent me last time I sent a sample in.

I'm not sure who you're quoting, NitroM3. It kind of doesn't make a whole lot of sense without more context.
 
How recent is this black bag change? Received a new bottle last week, is there a black bag in the bottle? My issue isn’t with the usps speed, mine arrive in 3 days, it’s the amount of time bs takes to run an analysis while Napa and Polaris run samples within a day or 2 or receiving.

on another note. Blackstone does not respond to their email inquiries on their contact page, two emails sent without any response.
 
I wonder if they will send just the Tyvek envelopes if you're sitting on a bunch of sample kits. I've got 8 that they sent me last time I sent a sample in.

I'm not sure who you're quoting, NitroM3. It kind of doesn't make a whole lot of sense without more context.
Did you request 8? I sent 2 voas and checked the box on both to receive new bottles, I only received 1 sample bottle in return.
 
on another note. Blackstone does not respond to their email inquiries on their contact page, two emails sent without any response.
That's odd, I used the contact page on Thursday to ask what the universal average meant on a VOA. I sent the question at 9:53 AM and Joe sent back a response at 3:19 PM the same day.
 
Did you request 8? I sent 2 voas and checked the box on both to receive new bottles, I only received 1 sample bottle in return.
No, but I did check the box on several samples I sent in in a short amount of time. Maybe they're trying to stay ahead of me. ;)
 
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