My Quest for Good Cheap Oil

You can run a Dodge Hellcat vs a Mustang GTD at the dragstrip and fairly easily figure out which one is faster in the quarter mile.
But it's much more difficult and expensive to statistically validate engine life.
Especially if the failure modes involve parts that depend on lubrication and occur at high accumulated miles.
That's why good marketing is able to sell 3 dollar a quart oil for 8 dollars a quart.
 
OP, if you follow that Jeep 4.0L and Supertech combo in today's cars, that's a big mistake. Listen, my dad's 1998 4Runner is on 20w60 crappy oil in Afghanistan and the thing is almost at 300,000 miles without any problem whatsoever. Super tech would be a delicacy for that poor thing. Miserable cold, hight heat, dust, snow, ice, horrible roads, you name it, and the thing runs. Nobody has ever been inside his engine, not even once. Those engines from the 90's were different. This funny little engine in the 6th generation 4Runner it's not going to be like that
 
Yeah it's not a problem until it is! Fouled oil control rings take time to show up. I respect your opinion as well, and I'm not trying to convince you to change. You've been here a while and read a lot and seen a lot of reports. I have come to a different conclusion based on the information available to me from reading reports here.
My thoughts on oil control rings getting stuck is that it has to do with the oil change interval being too long, and not the brand of synthetic oil used. That's why I never exceed 5,000 mile / 6 month OCI regardless of oil used.

Some problematic engines like Subaru's with engine design flaws will become oil burners whether using expensive or cheap systhetic oil equally. The only thing that can save those engines is using oil with some special cleaning property such as Ester or VRP's secret ingredient.
 
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Super Tech might even be better than the name brands.

My thinking is:

Name brand big companies are under pressure from shareholders to cut costs, increase profits, which leads them to cheapening their products. That's why you see First Brands/Fram cheapening their oil filters. The same could be happening with big oil companies.

Warren distribution on the other hand has a growing following with Walmart, Costco, Amazon Basics customers.
Warren has a $0 marketing budget which allows them to lower the price of the oil.
It's very unlikely they would cheapen the oil and risk losing a contract from Walmart.
Highline Warren is owned by an equity firm. I wouldn’t put too much faith in them not implementing cost cutting measures.
 
This is the oil that my dad uses. That's not even gasoline car oil, looks diesel. He's not even consistent with it, he pours whatever he finds. He says oil is oil, yeah oil is oil if you have a third gen 4Runner. They say that when the Apocalypse hits, only cockroaches and third gen 4Runners will survive. Scotty Kilmer says that one of his third gen 4Runner customers was a professional tornado chaser 😆

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I agree. That's why I'd use Quaker State Ultimate Protection Full Syn instead of Supertech, even though I think Supertech is reasonably good.
What if I told you if buy PUP from Amazon, it will be cheaper than QS Ultimate. 3 x 5 quart jugs for a little over $71 = less than $24 per jug which matches QS price on Walmart.

People have good things to say about PUP. PUP 5W-30 is $79 though.

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My thoughts on oil control rings getting stuck is that it has to do with the oil change interval being too long, and not the brand of synthetic oil used. That's why I never exceed 5,000 mile / 6 month OCI regardless of oil used.

Some problematic engines like Subaru's with engine design flaws will become oil burners whether using expensive or cheap systhetic oil equally. The only thing that can save those engines is using oil with some special cleaning property such as Ester or VRP's secret ingredient.
I don't think that is the case with cheaper oils. When that oil hits the 450F pistons, the lighter ends burn off right away. That happens when it's still up on the ramps. Cheaper oils start leaving deposits then. This process doesn't start at mile 5001.

Regarding your second point, many reports of Subarus with the problematic engines going 400k and beyond on Amsoil with no issues.
 
I agree. That's why I'd use Quaker State Ultimate Protection Full Syn instead of Supertech, even though I think Supertech is reasonably good.
Not sure if you remember Quaker State in the 1970's. It was known as Quaker Sludge. They cheapened the oil too much and peoples engines were seizing due to sludge. Not sure it's relevant today, but in my opinion, if a company betrays it's customers, 1 strike and you're out.
 
Supertech isn't that much cheaper than Quaker State Euro, for example. The difference in quality is worth it to many. But you are free to choose.

You have no evidence that Quaker State Euro is better quality than Supertech. In terms of cost, Walmart only offers the 5W-40 in my area, which doesn't meet the needs of many vehicles, so in the end, the cost is a fair bit more than Supertech, by the time you source it.
 
Super Tech might even be better than the name brands.

My thinking is:

Name brand big companies are under pressure from shareholders to cut costs, increase profits, which leads them to cheapening their products. That's why you see First Brands/Fram cheapening their oil filters. The same could be happening with big oil companies.

Warren distribution on the other hand has a growing following with Walmart, Costco, Amazon Basics customers.
Warren has a $0 marketing budget which allows them to lower the price of the oil.
It's very unlikely they would cheapen the oil and risk losing a contract from Walmart.
Warren is not a charity. They will maximize profit as much as they can. They are under a TREMENDOUS amount of pressure from Walmart to take as little as they will possibly take for their product. Walmart is notorious for shaking down their suppliers. ("If you want to sell at Walmart, this is what you're going to take for your product. Take it or leave it.") It is true they don't have to advertise, but rest assured that oil scrapes by the API spec by the skin of its teeth. Even more so after they were bought out by private equity. I'm certain they've raided that place and squeezed every cent out of it they can.

Again, you can get a Euro spec oil for like $4 more. I even got some Mobil 1 FS for under $20 a jug on sale and with the rebate. The difference between Supertech and on sale Euro oils is less than 10% of a single tank of gas for me. Money well spent IMHO, but it's a free country, so use the oil you're comfortable with.
 
20 something years of data and thousands of posts later........


s'all good man

Someone up in the previous 5 pages posted the answer. Unless you find some oil made by Slippy Goo International - anything you can buy at the big box store, it's all good, man.

The real question imo is it worth it to spend an extra 8-12 bucks a year to use Supertech over Mobil 1 or Penz or QS or Valvoline or yada yada yada.

Last time I looked, a 5qt of supertech was like 3-4 bucks cheaper than Mobil 1, and 2 bucks cheaper than QS.
 
Not sure if you remember Quaker State in the 1970's. It was known as Quaker Sludge. They cheapened the oil too much and peoples engines were seizing due to sludge. Not sure it's relevant today, but in my opinion, if a company betrays it's customers, 1 strike and you're out.
Buddy that was 50 years ago. I know, I want to think the 70s were still 20 years ago, too.

The people who made those decisions and formulated the oil are all dead now.

I can see you really used a lot of deep reasoning when you decided on Supertech.
 
What designations are A3, B4, C3? Are those Euro oils? I'm only familiar with API.

yes,

A for gasoline, B for diesel, C for reduced metallic content (saps) and E for heavy duty engines.

Those all have sub categories for viscosity and/or specific saps levels, that's what the numbers refer to.

For decades now, the passenger car oils are dual purpose so you will always see A and B together like A3/B4. That's why for the C oils they didn't botter anymore to seperate them into gasoline and diesel.
 
Warren is not a charity. They will maximize profit as much as they can. They are under a TREMENDOUS amount of pressure from Walmart to take as little as they will possibly take for their product. Walmart is notorious for shaking down their suppliers. ("If you want to sell at Walmart, this is what you're going to take for your product. Take it or leave it.") It is true they don't have to advertise, but rest assured that oil scrapes by the API spec by the skin of its teeth. Even more so after they were bought out by private equity. I'm certain they've raided that place and squeezed every cent out of it they can.

Again, you can get a Euro spec oil for like $4 more. I even got some Mobil 1 FS for under $20 a jug on sale and with the rebate. The difference between Supertech and on sale Euro oils is less than 10% of a single tank of gas for me. Money well spent IMHO, but it's a free country, so use the oil you're comfortable with.
Yes, the MB 229.5x spec is incredible in terms of wear prevention and sludge protection on the Lubrizol website.
I totally agree that Euro oil is so much better than any non euro API or Dexos speced oil.
 
This is the oil that my dad uses. That's not even gasoline car oil, looks diesel. He's not even consistent with it, he pours whatever he finds. He says oil is oil, yeah oil is oil if you have a third gen 4Runner. They say that when the Apocalypse hits, only cockroaches and third gen 4Runners will survive. Scotty Kilmer says that one of his third gen 4Runner customers was a professional tornado chaser 😆

View attachment 292684
API SG???

Wow.
 
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