Im so sick of hearing bad things about pennzoil...

[fsskier]

Re: Addyguy - concerning bad batches of VI improver in the early 70's...
I was already a fan of the SAE journal, and "Petroleum age" (not sure of the name of the last one) in the University Engineering library at that time. Many of the 10W40 motor oils has "bad additive packages" at that time. It seemed that the problem was something like this: Add a couple of drops of VI improver to 10W oil, you get 10W30. With diminishing returns you add a couple of spoonfuls to get 10W40. Lots of spoons full to get 10W50. The problem was that the VI improver left a lot of hard ash deposits when it burned, causing both stuck rings and carbon in the heads. Shortly after that GM eliminated?banned 10W40 for use in its vehicles, because the 10W40's were causing both ring sticking and breakage, and also causing ping complaints, due to deposits building up in the heads. GM actually published TSB's on this and said they would not honor warranty claims on stuck rings or pinging if you were using 10W40.

My personal experience was with STP 10W50, thinking that it was a good thing I began running it in my BMW 1600 in the early 70's.
The car soon pinged constantly and would diesel endlessly when turned off. It was several miserable years until I learned the cause and went back to 10W30, yes the head does clean up in a few months and returns to normal operation.

The engineering data that I saw indicated that all 10W40/50 oils
(assuming that they were using a mineral oil base) would likely promote these problems, and of course pennzoil would be no exception.

 

[wcbcruzer]

Originally Posted By: css9450
That's an excellent example of how these rumors spread. Does the mechanic know FOR SURE that the car has used predominately Pennzoil for its whole life? Does he know its maintenance history? How many car owners could accurately tell us which brand of oil their car has seen throughout its lifetime, particularly if purchased used? There are just too many unknowns. Sure, the mechanic might know what type of oil the car had been using since it was purchased, as well as its service history, IF he'd been the only mechanic that the owner had been bringing the car to all those years. But IF that were the case, I'd bet money that there would be no sludge!


He said he actually did have the entire service history of the vehicles that came in because they had contracts with the fleet. I don't know. I'm not arguing in favor of one or the other. I just feel like people use Pennzoil now just to make the point of "see my car is running fine." Well good for all you folks. We've used Castrol in our 1988 Toyota Corolla since day 1 and it too is running fine. Does it make Castrol a better oil? Not necessarily. As long as you change your oil on time I don't really see how ANY motor oil can actually destroy an engine. Even the oils they sell at the grocery store would work. Not feeling comfortable about using something is a good enough reason for me not to use it.

But let me tell all you Pennzoil people something. I can almost guarantee that if you went out and bought a brand new Corvette ZR1, you won't be putting Pennzoil in it. Coincidence?

 

[gnet158]

I'd dont' know about the YB stuff but I love the PP syn.

 

[addyguy]

Originally Posted By: fsskier
Re: Addyguy - concerning bad batches of VI improver in the early 70's...
I was already a fan of the SAE journal, and "Petroleum age" (not sure of the name of the last one) in the University Engineering library at that time. Many of the 10W40 motor oils has "bad additive packages" at that time. It seemed that the problem was something like this: Add a couple of drops of VI improver to 10W oil, you get 10W30. With diminishing returns you add a couple of spoonfuls to get 10W40. Lots of spoons full to get 10W50. The problem was that the VI improver left a lot of hard ash deposits when it burned, causing both stuck rings and carbon in the heads. Shortly after that GM eliminated?banned 10W40 for use in its vehicles, because the 10W40's were causing both ring sticking and breakage, and also causing ping complaints, due to deposits building up in the heads. GM actually published TSB's on this and said they would not honor warranty claims on stuck rings or pinging if you were using 10W40.

My personal experience was with STP 10W50, thinking that it was a good thing I began running it in my BMW 1600 in the early 70's.
The car soon pinged constantly and would diesel endlessly when turned off. It was several miserable years until I learned the cause and went back to 10W30, yes the head does clean up in a few months and returns to normal operation.

The engineering data that I saw indicated that all 10W40/50 oils
(assuming that they were using a mineral oil base) would likely promote these problems, and of course pennzoil would be no exception.


Not trying to single out Pennzoil - I know a lot of 10W-40/10W-50 oils in the 1970's had this problem.

Interesting to hear an explanation of the problem. I didn't think it came from the VI burning, but just from it breaking down, and becoming useless chuks of 'liquid plastic' floating around. Apparently, it didn't like heat to much, and globed up into the sludgy black/brown deposits everyone saw.

This isn't far from what you are sayiong, but I didn't know it specifically caused bad problems when it burned...but it is interesting that some engines had absolutly NO problems running these oils - they stayed clean and ran well!

 

[ThirdeYe]

Originally Posted By: wcbcruzer
Originally Posted By: css9450
That's an excellent example of how these rumors spread. Does the mechanic know FOR SURE that the car has used predominately Pennzoil for its whole life? Does he know its maintenance history? How many car owners could accurately tell us which brand of oil their car has seen throughout its lifetime, particularly if purchased used? There are just too many unknowns. Sure, the mechanic might know what type of oil the car had been using since it was purchased, as well as its service history, IF he'd been the only mechanic that the owner had been bringing the car to all those years. But IF that were the case, I'd bet money that there would be no sludge!


He said he actually did have the entire service history of the vehicles that came in because they had contracts with the fleet. I don't know. I'm not arguing in favor of one or the other. I just feel like people use Pennzoil now just to make the point of "see my car is running fine." Well good for all you folks. We've used Castrol in our 1988 Toyota Corolla since day 1 and it too is running fine. Does it make Castrol a better oil? Not necessarily. As long as you change your oil on time I don't really see how ANY motor oil can actually destroy an engine. Even the oils they sell at the grocery store would work. Not feeling comfortable about using something is a good enough reason for me not to use it.

But let me tell all you Pennzoil people something. I can almost guarantee that if you went out and bought a brand new Corvette ZR1, you won't be putting Pennzoil in it. Coincidence?


Actually, if I had a brand new Corvette, I'd most likely be using Pennzoil Platinum in it.

 

[chevrofreak]

Originally Posted By: ThirdeYe
Actually, if I had a brand new Corvette, I'd most likely be using Pennzoil Platinum in it.

I would agree with this.

 

[Johnny]

Originally Posted By: wcbcruzer
Originally Posted By: css9450
That's an excellent example of how these rumors spread. Does the mechanic know FOR SURE that the car has used predominately Pennzoil for its whole life? Does he know its maintenance history? How many car owners could accurately tell us which brand of oil their car has seen throughout its lifetime, particularly if purchased used? There are just too many unknowns. Sure, the mechanic might know what type of oil the car had been using since it was purchased, as well as its service history, IF he'd been the only mechanic that the owner had been bringing the car to all those years. But IF that were the case, I'd bet money that there would be no sludge!


He said he actually did have the entire service history of the vehicles that came in because they had contracts with the fleet. I don't know. I'm not arguing in favor of one or the other. I just feel like people use Pennzoil now just to make the point of "see my car is running fine." Well good for all you folks. We've used Castrol in our 1988 Toyota Corolla since day 1 and it too is running fine. Does it make Castrol a better oil? Not necessarily. As long as you change your oil on time I don't really see how ANY motor oil can actually destroy an engine. Even the oils they sell at the grocery store would work. Not feeling comfortable about using something is a good enough reason for me not to use it.

But let me tell all you Pennzoil people something. I can almost guarantee that if you went out and bought a brand new Corvette ZR1, you won't be putting Pennzoil in it. Coincidence?


Not the conventional, but would use Platinum without reservation.

On that note, I would not use anyones convention in a ZR1, not even Castrol

 

[WalterMitty]

Originally Posted By: css9450
Originally Posted By: wcbcruzer
A mechanic said that the motors he disassembled that used Pennzoil or Quaker State always had more sludge built up in them.


That's an excellent example of how these rumors spread.

[snip]


I agree. Now, I haven't been an auto mechanic as a living for several years so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I don't ever recall tearing an engine down and doing an overhaul because it was running "great".

Generally, by the time I got to them they were well worn out (or abused) and had a laundry list of problems including lots of blow-by, poor cooling efficiency, toasted PCV valves, worn out oil pumps and other various and sundry defects including poor maintenance.

Invariably the engines would be full of sludge, carbon, and other deposits, but that's what engines with cracked pistons, leaking head gaskets, scored cylinder walls, and broken oil control rings do.

That's usually why you tear them down in the first place.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: wcbcruzer
But let me tell all you Pennzoil people something. I can almost guarantee that if you went out and bought a brand new Corvette ZR1, you won't be putting Pennzoil in it. Coincidence?


I would absolutely run Pennzoil Platinum in it. The car requires an oil that meets GM's GM4718M oil specification. Both the Mobil 1 and Pennzoil Platinum products meet that oil specification. I'd use either with confidence, though my preference would be the PP.

ExxonMobil likely pays a lot of money to GM to have their name show on the oil fill cap. As long as the oil meets the GM technical spec, you're good to go.

 

[rg200amp]

Originally Posted By: ThirdeYe
Originally Posted By: wcbcruzer
Originally Posted By: css9450
That's an excellent example of how these rumors spread. Does the mechanic know FOR SURE that the car has used predominately Pennzoil for its whole life? Does he know its maintenance history? How many car owners could accurately tell us which brand of oil their car has seen throughout its lifetime, particularly if purchased used? There are just too many unknowns. Sure, the mechanic might know what type of oil the car had been using since it was purchased, as well as its service history, IF he'd been the only mechanic that the owner had been bringing the car to all those years. But IF that were the case, I'd bet money that there would be no sludge!


He said he actually did have the entire service history of the vehicles that came in because they had contracts with the fleet. I don't know. I'm not arguing in favor of one or the other. I just feel like people use Pennzoil now just to make the point of "see my car is running fine." Well good for all you folks. We've used Castrol in our 1988 Toyota Corolla since day 1 and it too is running fine. Does it make Castrol a better oil? Not necessarily. As long as you change your oil on time I don't really see how ANY motor oil can actually destroy an engine. Even the oils they sell at the grocery store would work. Not feeling comfortable about using something is a good enough reason for me not to use it.

But let me tell all you Pennzoil people something. I can almost guarantee that if you went out and bought a brand new Corvette ZR1, you won't be putting Pennzoil in it. Coincidence?


Actually, if I had a brand new Corvette, I'd most likely be using Pennzoil Platinum in it.

If I had a brand new ZR1, I would be useing Redline or more likely Motul Oil.

 

[mechtech2]

Arnold Palmer likes Pennzoil.
What more needs to be said?

 

[craigq]

Over on YarisWorld.com there's a guy who's saying some incredible things about PZYB (sorry for all of the quotes, he makes me laugh with each of his posts):

"My VVTi is very sensitive to oil weight. Its been "non-functional" more than a few times, especially now i'm on the yellow bottle to accelerrate break in. Never again yellow bottle"

"Especially dangerous is changing to syn after running [censored] yellow bottle for 5-6Km mile. World of gunk will circulate the first week. and prob jam up the chain tensioner. See it ALL the time."

"Well - Ive been running my car pretty hard and its running on 3 cyl now. Its got rough idle and low power. So I Guess I'm just full of sheet anyhow. Guess you cant expect to run a commuter car at wide open all the time and have it last more than 10,000 miles. Oh Yeah, my Yugo didn't have a problem - but then again it wasn't running on Gasohol."

"Its running better - Ran some mobil premuim through and cleard up. May have been dirty injector ur stuck valve IDK. Its OK now. I blame it on the Yellow Bottle Oil(SOPUS). Car started running bad at 3k on the Yellow Bottle oil."


"I am currently running the yellow P-brand bottle 5W-30 and it absolutely SUCKS. The car is constantly down on power and the vvti works only periodically (awesome torque vs kia-style torque)."

This has been one of the best responses to him so far: "*** is this guy saying. who got him started again?????"

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Originally Posted By: Ponch
Im so sick of hearing bad things about pennzoil...




Don't believe it!

If there was a problem, then Pennzoi conventional would not out-sell all other conventional oils by a wide margin.

America's buying public aren't stupid. They know how to pick a good oil.

 

[SilverC6]

I own a new C6 Corvette and Pennzoil Platinum 5W-30 is in it.

I've used Pennzoil in all my vehicles since the 1980's with no problems ever.

 

[aquariuscsm]

^^^^That is one SWEET car!

 

[Patman]

Originally Posted By: wcbcruzer


But let me tell all you Pennzoil people something. I can almost guarantee that if you went out and bought a brand new Corvette ZR1, you won't be putting Pennzoil in it.


I most certainly would! I run Pennzoil Platinum in my 98 Corvette and would not hesitate to run it in a new ZR1 if I were lucky enough to get one!

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: SilverC6
I own a new C6 Corvette and Pennzoil Platinum 5W-30 is in it.

I've used Pennzoil in all my vehicles since the 1980's with no problems ever.

Nice car! I use it w/o hesitation! Great products!

Frank D

 

[Johnny]

Originally Posted By: SilverC6
I own a new C6 Corvette and Pennzoil Platinum 5W-30 is in it.

I've used Pennzoil in all my vehicles since the 1980's with no problems ever.

Yes indeed. That's a good looking Vette, and the shoot location really shows it off. Very nice.

 

[06VtecV6]

Originally Posted By: Ponch
....I cant even bring up this name around people in public who are NOT members of this website...I hear the old classic "it will form wax in your engine"....guys..I am 27 years old.....and I do not EVER remember this oil causing a problem in any of my vehicles..I have only been driving since 1997,...when was this supposed era of pennzoil "waxing" taking place? 60's 70's 80's? My friend had a 1993 chevy he had for sale a while ago that ran GREAT with NOTHING but pennzoil since new and had 140,000 miles...a gentleman drove from out of state with his wife to look/drive at this fine truck with CASH in HAND, only to back out of the deal when he asked my buddy what kind of oil he ran in it. He told him the truth and said pennzoil. The fellow almost left black tire marks when he left!! WHAT GIVES!! Has anyone ever had bad luck with it? I hear that SHELL owns it now? Is this true? I happen to proudly admit that I run Pennzoil Platinum, which I buy at wally world for a good price.


my daddy has used yellow bottle pennzoil conventional (he might have opted for the advanced conventional) on our 88-89 camry and it is over 220k right now. he's never questioned it. daddy did it with the simplest and easiest choices out there.

 

[Bill in Utah]

Originally Posted By: SilverC6
I own a new C6 Corvette and Pennzoil Platinum 5W-30 is in it.

I've used Pennzoil in all my vehicles since the 1980's with no problems ever.

Very NICE!

I'd run PP over Mobil 1 in a sec. (and do)

Hopefully someday (sadly my days are running out) I'd be able to own a nice C5 or C6.

Enjoy! bill