Pennzoil ULTRA versus Red Line

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Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
Order it online from Walmart and have it shipped site to store.
Walmart no longer offers site to store on the PU. And they do offer it on other oils. Not looking good.
 
If all of us call Pennzoil and demand Ultra perhaps it may help. Their number: 1-800-237-8645, ext 32.....I was assured that Shell has an agreement to sell Ultra at every store. However I went to Management at my local and requested it with negative results.As I posted before I must drive approx 25 miles to get Ultra.

There are 8 stores in the Metro area and only Walmart in the fluent area sells it......Good weekend everyone.
 
Originally Posted By: Pajero
If all of us call Pennzoil and demand Ultra perhaps it may help. Their number: 1-800-237-8645, ext 32.....I was assured that Shell has an agreement to sell Ultra at every store. However I went to Management at my local and requested it with negative results.As I posted before I must drive approx 25 miles to get Ultra.

There are 8 stores in the Metro area and only Walmart in the fluent area sells it......Good weekend everyone.


Why not just contact your local distributor? Every other month the local Pennzoil distributor has PU on sale for around 4USD a quart.
 
No matter what Pennzoil says, Ultra is killed! Dead! They just won't say it publicly for whatever reasons!

It's gone from not just Walmart but a lot of other stores. And this is not just a simple temporary inventory issue...it's been gone for months. What do you think it means if a product is gone from not one, but from multiple retailers and that too not just in one or two of each retailers stores, but rather multiple regions?

Walmart says "Not stocked" in 9 out of 10 cases in my area, the 10th one being out of stock. Not stocked means it will never be restocked, at least not as the same SKU. I haven't been able to find it any of the other local auto stores for a couple of months now.

Clearly (to me), it's dead in it's current form.

It seems (to me) Pennzoil is waiting for stock levels to drop before re-branding and relaunching something similar, possibly something in between PP and original PU for a 15% to 20% premium over PU at walmart.

For now, I went with the Napa Syn deal while I figure out what do I want to do...PP or M1AFE/EP/HM. If the Napa Syn turns out to be just as fine with slightly shorter OCIs, then I might as well make that permanent. I am a single brand guy and I was exclusively PU for last 5-6 years. Looks like it's time for a switch.
 
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Originally Posted By: dave1251
Why not just contact your local distributor? Every other month the local Pennzoil distributor has PU on sale for around 4USD a quart.

That, or Shell should start marketing it as Helix Ultra. The boy racer boutique buyers would find it a better domestic alternative.
wink.gif
 
Originally Posted By: dgsbikes
I was exclusively PU for last 5-6 years.Looks like it's time for a switch.


Huh 5-6 years? PU has been out for that long? My how time flies.
 
Originally Posted By: NHGUY
Pennzoil is playing suicide with Ultra,eventually it will be discontinued due to lack of sales,and that lack of sales will be directly tied to the lack of retail outlets selling it.You would think Pennzoil would be hopping mad to lose all the exposure of the major player retailers.However,I am thinking this is all a master plan.Ultra will be replaced with something else....SuperDuper Oil....Stupendous Oil,....Supreme Oil...and the lack of pushing Ultra will be a way of saving face,and saying that they didnt drop a popular product,they just got rid of a slow seller and replaced it with something even better....



It may well be possible that something like this will happen. From marketing perspective, the name "Ultra" has been a huge failure. Look at me and then think of people who never visit this web site. I had a BITOG account for over a year, and unless someone constantly keeps rubbing it in my face, I will forget in about a month whether Ultra or Platinum is supposed to be the better Pennzoil motor oil. "Ultra" has to denote something really good, but platinum is also a quite noble metal, and supposed to be a lot more expensive than gold. Honestly, unless someone keeps reminding me that Ultra is better than Platinum, I will have no idea which one is supposed to be the better motor oil.

Likewise, Castrol has a similar problem with its Edge product. We have "Edge with Titanium" and "Edge with Syntec". How is Joe six-pack supposed to know which one is better? I think Mobil was really smart about creating multi-tiered synthetic oil brands. Everyone knows that Mobil 1 is supposed to be good. Therefore, Mobil 1 Extended Performance is supposed to be better than plain Mobil 1.
 
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Ultra is non-existent in my area,no one carries it anymore. But I can walk into Carquest and buy Redline any day of the week.It's really a shame. Are you listening Pennzoil?????
 
I've stockpiled 15 jugs of ultra and I'm happy I did.
I think red line is a better oil however lack of any certs disqualify it from anything even remotely new.
I do believe ultra is the best off the shelf oil you can/used to be able to easily attain.
M1 for 23 a jug is very tempting,however when I was at Walmart yesterday it was still 46 a jug,so I'll sit here smiling about my 28 bucks a jug ultra.
And it's the most recent formulation. SN and gf-5 or something.
 
Well all this about Ultra disappearing is twisting my possibility about switching to Ultra.
One vehicle I'm using PP and was thinking of going to Ultra, and sticking with planned 6-7.5k OCIs (warranty). Now its staying with PP, or just possibility going PYB with 5k OCIs.
About a week (or so) I went to go get some oil to have on hand when the next OC is due and they were all out of both PU & PP. Although they had some QSUD, there wasn't much of it (getting low). They had plenty of PYB and others on shelves, reason I got to thinking of the PYB & shorter OCIs.
I got another couple k to go before I have to get something.
 
There was an article recently about the confusion among the multiple synthetic tiers and how it's becoming a bit much. They should have just made PP the top of the line and improved it.
 
By definition,Ultra denotes the peak, the ultimate, of something. While I don't personally like adjectives like "ultra' , seems a little juvenile, but that's what the market wants. Would prefer something more serious or adult sounding, but I can get over that because the product is excellent.

It would make more sense for Shell to release the products under "Rototiller" or "Helix" brand, but PZ subsidiary can't use them.

Originally Posted By: Zako2

\the name "Ultra" has been a huge failure. Look at me and then think of people who never visit this web site. I had a BITOG account for over a year, and unless someone constantly keeps rubbing it in my face, I will forget in about a month whether Ultra or Platinum is supposed to be the better Pennzoil motor oil. "Ultra" has to denote something really good, but platinum is also a quite noble metal, and supposed to be a lot more expensive than gold. Honestly, unless someone keeps reminding me that Ultra is better than Platinum, I will have no idea which one is supposed to be the better motor oil.

Likewise, Castrol has a similar problem with its Edge product. We have "Edge with Titanium" and "Edge with Syntec". How is Joe six-pack supposed to know which one is better? I think Mobil was really smart about creating multi-tiered synthetic oil brands. Everyone knows that Mobil 1 is supposed to be good. Therefore, Mobil 1 Extended Performance is supposed to be better than plain Mobil 1.
 
Originally Posted By: dgsbikes
No matter what Pennzoil says, Ultra is killed! Dead! They just won't say it publicly for whatever reasons! .... It seems (to me) Pennzoil is waiting for stock levels to drop before re-branding and relaunching something similar,


+1
 
Thanks to the wonderful BITOG community, I now have in my possession 2 big jugs of Ultra as of this afternoon! Perhaps they're the last 2 jugs in the whole St. Louis area? Thank you BITOG!

Well, actually they're not the last 2 jugs because the store I bought them from had 5 total jugs of 5w-30 and I bought only 2. So now it's my turn to give back for the help I received. There are 3 more 5-quart jugs of Ultra at the Walmart on West Florissant in Ferguson (just a few blocks south of 270, not far from the airport). Get them while they last. It was a 44-mile round-trip for me, but well worth it, considering the Amsoil SSO I've used in the past was over $100 for 10 quarts (2 oil changes), and the same for Renewable Lube Bio-Syn. So the Ultra is roughly half the cost for an oil of comparable quality, or nearly so, depending on your opinion. Buster, I would be interested to know why you say Ultra is better than Red Line. Your statement intrigued me.

The Ferguson Walmart also has 4 jugs of 10w-30 Ultra and 4 jugs of 5w-20. The price for each Ultra jug is a few pennies under $27. That Walmart also still has 7 one-quart bottles of 5w-30 Ultra priced at 7.82 each, and 7 one-quart bottles of 10w-30, and another 7 one-quart bottles of 5w-20.

Get this: the 2 jugs I bought each came with a $5 or $10 mail-in rebate form attached to them. Sorry, but the rebate forms were missing from the 3 jugs of 5w-30 I left behind, but who can argue with 27 dollars for an Ultra jug.

The Ferguson Walmart also has Mobil 1 EP (Extended Performance) priced exactly as the Ultra: $27, but the regular M1 is on sale right now for 22.50, regularly $25. $25 is also the current price of Pennzoil Platinum jugs there.

If I recall correctly, I think I also saw some 0w20 Platinum there and some zero weight Mobil 1's, all on sale for 22.50, IIRC, regularly 25. MonkeyMan's post convinced me to consider Mobil 1 again in the future if Ultra becomes history, but I'm not particularly fond of that company or BP.

Thanks 901Memphis. Your suggestion above to "order [Ultra] online from Walmart and have it shipped site to store" led me to the discovery of the remaining jugs of Ultra in town. Blkstanger is right that Walmart won't let you ship Ultra from site to store anymore, but the Walmart.com search feature did allow me to locate the Ferguson stash. According to the Walmart web site search, the Eureka Walmart also has some Ultra left, but when I called the Eureka store, they said they don't have any left. So the Walmart.com search feature may not be completely accurate, but it sure was right about the Ferguson stash!

I have to go for now but I'll be back later to respond to some of the other very helpful posts above. I just wanted to quickly alert the local BITOG community of the remaining Ultra in town.

If you decide to pick some up at the Ferguson Walmart, please post a message to let us know. And good luck!
 
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Well the napa in Saskatoon has shelves stocked with ultra,for 71 bucks a jug. I'm am laughing hysterically right now because last month there was a special on ultra jugs for 28 bucks each.
At that price no one is buying it. Heck if it wasn't for the sale price I wouldn't have bought it.
I'll wait til pp is 22 a jug at Walmart next month and use it.
 
Why be so concerned over finding Ultra? Just use Mobil 1 EP which is readily available and comparable?
 
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