20 years ago or so, early in BITOG existence, Castrol made an oil called Syntec 0W-30.
In its earliest guise, it was a NA made, RC 0W-30 oil, and it wasn’t great, it was thin in grade, and sheared badly AFAIK.
Then Castrol ‘switched’ this oil to be a Euro-spec oil - the base oil became a PAO/Ester blend, it was 12cst and had 3.5 HT/HS, and a heavy-duty add pack loaded with Ca and ZDDP. It was very shear resistant, stout oil. It was now made in Germany, so it became ‘German Castrol’, or GC. A lot of effort was spent helping people separate the two oils at stores, and only get the ‘good stuff’, true GC.
It became the absolute darling of this site - it was recommended for every car application, it was UOA’d and discussed in almost every thread, and the people on the site even ‘crowdsourced’ money to have a spectrographic analysis done of its base oil. It was the oil to end all oils.
As start up wear, fuel efficiency, and emissions became more important, it quickly fell out of favour as a one size fits all oil. It was also fairly expensive, and one big complaint against it is that it didn’t come in multi-quart containers, only 1L ones. Along the way production also shifted to Belgium, so it became BC.
The other day I was making homes on the shelf for a bunch of new oils my CT store is stocking, and among them was, I kid you not, Castrol Edge 0W-30 A3/B3 in 5L jugs!!
Further, I checked the back of the jug, and it is now ‘made in the USA with imported and domestic ingredients’!
So we have come full circle; we have Castrol Edge 0W-30 US again, only this time it is ‘the good stuff’. We said here for how long ‘this needs to be in 5L jugs? Well, now that hardly anyone uses it, it is! Imagine how much of this they could have sold 15 years ago when everyone was raving about it, but some didn’t buy it bc it didn’t come in multi-quart containers!
I wonder how well this will sell, as A3 is becoming a very old spec, lots of new Euro cars take 0W-20 now!
Crazy stuff….
In its earliest guise, it was a NA made, RC 0W-30 oil, and it wasn’t great, it was thin in grade, and sheared badly AFAIK.
Then Castrol ‘switched’ this oil to be a Euro-spec oil - the base oil became a PAO/Ester blend, it was 12cst and had 3.5 HT/HS, and a heavy-duty add pack loaded with Ca and ZDDP. It was very shear resistant, stout oil. It was now made in Germany, so it became ‘German Castrol’, or GC. A lot of effort was spent helping people separate the two oils at stores, and only get the ‘good stuff’, true GC.
It became the absolute darling of this site - it was recommended for every car application, it was UOA’d and discussed in almost every thread, and the people on the site even ‘crowdsourced’ money to have a spectrographic analysis done of its base oil. It was the oil to end all oils.
As start up wear, fuel efficiency, and emissions became more important, it quickly fell out of favour as a one size fits all oil. It was also fairly expensive, and one big complaint against it is that it didn’t come in multi-quart containers, only 1L ones. Along the way production also shifted to Belgium, so it became BC.
The other day I was making homes on the shelf for a bunch of new oils my CT store is stocking, and among them was, I kid you not, Castrol Edge 0W-30 A3/B3 in 5L jugs!!
Further, I checked the back of the jug, and it is now ‘made in the USA with imported and domestic ingredients’!
So we have come full circle; we have Castrol Edge 0W-30 US again, only this time it is ‘the good stuff’. We said here for how long ‘this needs to be in 5L jugs? Well, now that hardly anyone uses it, it is! Imagine how much of this they could have sold 15 years ago when everyone was raving about it, but some didn’t buy it bc it didn’t come in multi-quart containers!
I wonder how well this will sell, as A3 is becoming a very old spec, lots of new Euro cars take 0W-20 now!
Crazy stuff….
I remember that derailment well! We were at the far end of Mississauga and didn’t have to evacuate but we still did anyway just to be safe.
