Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Not saying this happened to you, but counterfeit oil being sold in genuine containers has been known to happen in some parts of the world.
Originally Posted By: CentAmDL650
There are dishonest people who make their living by scamming unsuspecting customers. It's easier to do when there are less (or no) regulators to ensure customers are getting the genuine article. There is more potential for it with high end luxury products because there is more profit involved. Because quite a bit if money can be made counterfeiting, counterfeiters will sometimes make the investment to produce perfect duplicate labels and containers. Unfortunately a sad fact of life.
That said, what we don't know is the entire history of the engine in question. Is it possible that before you used M1 0W-40 you (or the previous owner) used a lesser grade of motor oil, especially a conventional in excessively hot desert conditions? A less probable theory would seem like: for the period of time that lesser oil was in use, it made deposits in the engine, and now, after changing to M1 0W-40 synthetic, those deposits were loosened by the previous three fills and are now (finally) freed up and circulating with the current fill. So if that's the case, it could be possible you received genuine M1 0W-40 every time.
But it just seems more likely that the 1st or 2nd fill of M1 0W-40 would have performed a significant amount of cleaning on the existing deposits and the results would have shown what you are seeing now on the dipstick.
Unlike much of the Middle East, the Kuwaitis are very stringent about what comes into their country. Imports have to go through Intertek, which is an absolute pain in the backside for importers and suppliers alike, before they can even be considered to be licensed for sale. The regulating government body does and can, at any given time, pick random samples of products to compare against technical inspection reports they have on file for any given product. As far as lubricants are concerned, if they pick a random sample of Mobil 1 0W-40 off the shelf at an authorized distributor or reseller and analyze it, and it doesn't match what is on record, there are serious consequences.
I'm not implying that scams don't happen, but for such a small country, these things are easy to regulate and the government body responsible takes it very seriously. Agents show up as regular customers, and even pay for products just like Average Joe would. If the standards are met, the store will never even know they were sampled.
Many moons ago, there was a massive investigation involving both General Motors and Toyota concerning counterfeit oil filters and brake pads. Some scam artist managed to import Chinese clones of ACDelco and Toyota filters/pads to be sold as genuine parts. Not only was the person responsible put behind bars for heaven only knows how long, but his license was revoked permanently, products destroyed and banned from ever setting up shop ever again. The media is also used as a major tool and nobody wants bad publicity. They upped everything by several notches ever since.
The Mobil 1 distributor is a major holding, who are also authorized sole distributors for Michelin, BFGoodrich, Mazda and several other brands. They will not risk getting their status revoked by ExxonMobil, bad publicity and closing shop for the sake pennies earned by selling counterfeit products under their distributor umbrella.
As far as the history is concerned, my family is the original owner and the truck was bought brand new in October of '99. For the first few years of it's life, it was dealer maintained and run on Group I based Gulf 20W-50 conventional sourced from Dubai. Sadly, products imported from member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar) do not go through Intertek and corporations take advantage of this loophole in the system by setting up shop at a GCC destination, predominantly Dubai. Dubai sourced lubricants are some of the poorest in quality and barely meet the specifications they list on the bottle - I know this for fact because I had some of them analyzed and compared against their European counterparts. Castrol are especially bad at this. Most major brands are blended by the Middle East Lubricants Company, including Gulf Oil, and are best avoided at all cost.
That being said, the oil did leave deposits behind, which were not removed by 4 different Auto-RX cleaning cycles. The engine developed the infamous oil burning issue through the valve stem seals, and I took this opportunity to pull the heads off to replace the guides, get the heads cleaned and put everything back together. Ironically, the guides had normal wear and tear, contrary to my expectations. The valve seals, on the other hand, were rock hard.
I have since run nothing but synthetics meeting ACEA standards. I started with Pennzoil Platinum 5W-30, which met ACEA A5/B5, but later switched to Pennzoil Ultra Euro 5W-40 for the MB Sheet 229.5 specification. A year later, I made the permanent switch to Mobil 1 0W-40 and three years down the road, I'm still running it.