I was walking around WalMart today...

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I was in WalMart today and took a look at the prices for various motor oils. Pretty interesting.

Right now I am using Castrol High Mileage 5W30 in my car. For about $14.00 you can get a five quart container of this oil. Heck, for around 4 bucks more you can get five quarts of Penzoil Platinum synthetic oil. The Mobil 1 5W30 five quarts was something like $22.00.

If you want to go conventional you can get five quarts of Valvoline 5W30 for less then 10 bucks.

Anyway it is cheaper to go with the five quart container which you can then use to return the used oil to a recycling center.

If you like conventional oil the Valvoline conventional in five quart containers makes oil changes about as cheap as you can go. Maybe the Valvoline is not the greatest oil but 3000 mile oil changes sure are tempting at that price.

The Penzoil Platinum sure looks tempting. For about what I pay now for Castrol HM you could be using the Penzoil synthetic oil.

The Mobil 1 is more costly, especially the Extended Mileage. It was close to $30.00 per five quarts.
 
You can get a 24/qt case of Chevron at Costco for $16.50, not on sale, no coupon. $.69 a quart is pretty cheap for a good oil.
 
Our local Walmart has Valvoline Max-Life: Box of 5 for $7.50.
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--- Bror Jace
 
Doesn't hurt to check the price of the individual bottles vs. the 5 qt. jug.
On two occasions last year, the 5 single qts. were cheaper than the jug. (Mobil-1).
 
quote:

Originally posted by schwartr88:
"Maybe the Valvoline is not the greatest oil. . ."


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Sighs, just another rumor perpetuated by ignorant idiots.


well this ignorant idiot ran a triumph bonneville motorcycle in on vulvoline 20w50 in about 1986 . wiped out the new cams and followers, scored the valve stems and generally made my life miserable, so i'll leave it to the water cooled commuters thankyou very much
 
But a year of walking around Walmart tells me
oil prices are headed higher. My $7 jug of havoline went to mid $8 and now $9+. ST and the rest the same.
 
Finished motor oil prices will come down or attractive rebates will make up for the fact that refining plants, like Motiva, are coming back on-line....big time.
 
I just happened to run into Wally World this evening after work and thought I'd check some prices. I read about some stores offering a 5qt box of Maxlife for around $8. Here are some prices I found:
Havoline 5qt jug - $8.48
Valvoline Maxlife 5 qt jug - $12.48
SuperTech 1 qt (bottled by EM) - $1.38
Mobil Clean 5000 1 qt - $2.08
Motorcraft 5qt jug - $9.98
These are the ones I remember. Price-wise, nothing to write home about.
They didn't offer much in 5w-20 - I do know they had Pennzoil (dino), Castrol GTX, MC 5000 and SuperTech in that grade. I was specifically looking for Maxlife and Havoline, but no luck. They stock Delo but not Chevron Supreme. Do any members from SW Ohio know where it (Supreme) can be found?
 
quote:

Originally posted by Bror Jace:
Our local Walmart has Valvoline Max-Life: Box of 5 for $7.50.
smile.gif


--- Bror Jace


Mine too. I bought 6 boxes of 10W-30 for our service trucks. A good deal at $1.50/qt.
 
Darn! I don't see those prices in Walmarts here!(maxlife deal) I think it is a curse to try to find oil deals anywhere in New England
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Goose
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[/QUOTE]well this ignorant idiot ran a triumph bonneville motorcycle in on vulvoline 20w50 in about 1986 . wiped out the new cams and followers, scored the valve stems and generally made my life miserable, so i'll leave it to the water cooled commuters thankyou very much [/QB][/QUOTE]


Ive also read that M1, Pennzoil, QS, Castrol, and many other oils "ruined" someones engine at one point in time. I guess this means ALL oil is **** and none of them should ever be used.
 
Incidents like that can just as easily be blamed on manufacturing defects as they can on the oil choice. I once saw a 1989 Ford Escort with worn down cam lobes....so bad that the car would barely run. The owner said the performance degradation was very gradual....nothing sudden. He had always done faithful 3K oil changes using Castrol GTX 10W-30. Who is to blame? Ford....either for soft cam lobes or an inadequate oil pump. I sincerely doubt Castrol killed his cam.
 
I don't know if it's BITOG hoarders, but the Tracy and Stockton Wal-Marts don't have crap on the shelves anymore. Just lots of empty spaces where my favorite oils should be.
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There are two kinds of hoarding. The first is people who buy out a store in response to an expected upcoming emergency, i.e., a hurricane and they are buying up bottled water. After the storm, the spike demand is not sustained.

However, those of us who are motor oil hoarders are more of the kind who stock up when they see something new, or something familiar at a good price. This is not a "spike" in demand. Instead, it is people buying, over time, more than they are consuming.

It seems to me that this second type of hoarding should not be responsible for empty shelves except, maybe, the day that a "hoarder" cleans out the place. This is because this kind of hoarding represents an increase in sales. Well managed stores keep track of the rate at which various products are moving off the shelves, and adjust their wholesale purchases accordingly. Manufacturers seeing an increase in wholesale orders gear up to make more of their popular and profitable products.

So yes, if you showed up at a store 5 minutes after a motor oil hoarder cleaned out the shelf of his favorite oil, you would see an empty shelf. But it is unlikely that hoarders would be responsible for long term shortages.
 
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