Pennzoil vs. Valvoline

[hotrodpierre20]

I know, another * vs. * thread, but here it goes....

Which one you guys like best, Pennzoil Conventional or valvoine all climate. They are both the same price around here and will be used in 3-4k OCI. Either one have an advantage over the other? (aka; more moly, etc)

 

[nooil]

I like valvoline just because I have experienced cleaner engines with it. Some think it has too weak add pack. I don't think it has moly or much of it, but pennzoil has quite a bit. Can't tell ya more than that.

 

[1040 WreckerMan]

Between the two I've used far more Valvo. I get a pretty good deal on oil from NAPA, which is blended by Valvo. I have many high mileage engines and never had a problem. For reasonable OCI's I don't think you can go wrong with either. If you are looking for a specific trait of the oils, or have a more specific use in mind (like long OCI's, severe duty, etc.) you might get better responses. I think I'm going to try Pennzoil Platinum 5w30 or 5w40 for the next two OCI's in my gas truck and see what happens.

 

[dave1251]

For an 4K/4M oci it does not matter. But if you have an newer engine. You can enroll in Pennzoil extended warrenty program. If you change your oil at every 4K and document that you only used pennzoil. They will warrenty certain engine parts to 250,000 miles. There may be certain restrictians in the future. No doubt some people have tried and cheat the system. But if this is not putting faith in your product I don't know what it is.

 

[AndyH]

I'd use Pennzoil over Valvoline if both were the same price...many excellent used oil analysis using Pennzoil conventional oil in the archives.

 

[Blue99]

I've always been a fan of Pennzoil. The current lineup of GF-4/SM multi-grade engine oils utilize Grp II+ base oils from Motiva and have the moly & boron style add pack.

While I like the Valvoline product line, including the Durablend grease & Synpower throttle body cleaner, not much is known , on this site, about the engine oils.

Valvoline is only a blender and does not have a base oil plant, so it's hard to pin down the base oil source. And used oil analysis typically list few metallic adds, so the composition of the additive package is a bit of a mystery.

But we have many Valvoline fans on this site that get good results over normal OCI's, so obviously, Valvoline will perform with the rest of the GF-4/SM crowd.

 

[MC5W20]

I vote for Valvoline. Valvoline owns there own testing facility. It is state of the art and other companies pay them to do testing for them. I think the true difference between these oils is measured in "shades of gray". If it were my vehicle pennzoil would be avoided.

 

[Ramblin Fever]

I would personally call Valvoline far from having a weak add pack - at least in their Maxlife oils; just did a 4k oci with maxlife dino and there is still a lot of zinc, phosporous and calcium left in it.

Don't have experience with using their all-climate or dura-blend though, so I can't say.

 

[Rob Taggs]

Last I heard Valvoline gets their base oil from Shell. My pick of either would be Valvoline. I get a far cleaner engine with it than I do Pennzoil.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

For 3-4K OCIs... whatever's on sale at the time of need. Had you mentioned 4-5K OCIs, I would of suggested Pennzoil. It's add-pack is more generous - plus there's no percentage of Group I in one or more weights.

 

[doitmyself]

Flip a coin. In the end, you probably will make your decision based on some personal bias developed by some perception you picked up over the years (marketing, personal stories, etc.).

I used Valvolene successfully for many years until I came here and learned about the "weak add pack" - whatever.

I chose Pennzoil about 3 to 4 years ago because of all the buzz at BITOG about how they were using the same "iso-syn" base oil technology as Chevron, which was considered state of the art base oil.

In the end, I had to cut my ties with "all the top professional mechanics" using Valvolene and strike out on my own against all the "Pennzoil sludge groupies".

 

[farrarfan1]

Valvoline has a weak add pack.
Pennzoil causes sludge.
Pick whichever misconception you want and go with the other oil.

 

[hotrodpierre20]

I guess you really cant go wrong. My personnal faorite is havoline, which used to be $2.16 a quart up here. Pennzoil & Valvoline were $2.78 a quart. Now with the new Deposit shield, I know havo will go up. I guess we will see what happens. Good thing I have quite a bit of the "old" havoline in the stash....

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Quote:

---

Valvoline has a weak add pack.
Pennzoil causes sludge.
Pick whichever misconception you want and go with the other oil.

---

No misconception... go look at the Valvoline VOA/used oil analysis. Look at all but Maxlife Synthetic...ie... All Climate, Durablend and Synpower.

 

[RacerE7773]

I liked both, but being a Nascar fan of sorts I quit using them when the politics of team sponsorship was more important than the oil. I went through several other brands, and now am staying with Castrol 5w30.

 

[MC5W20]

Quote:

---

Last I heard Valvoline gets their base oil from Shell. My pick of either would be Valvoline. I get a far cleaner engine with it than I do Pennzoil.

---

http://www.ashland.com/pdfs/Chemicals-LubricantAdditivesLineCard.pdf

just click on the link

 

[sw99]

100% Penszoil! I say because I picked up 5 - 6 qt jugs at Vatozone on clearance

 

[farrarfan1]

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Valvoline has a weak add pack.
Pennzoil causes sludge.
Pick whichever misconception you want and go with the other oil.

---

No misconception... go look at the Valvoline VOA/used oil analysis. Look at all but Maxlife Synthetic...ie... All Climate, Durablend and Synpower.

---

I have. Valvolines conventional appears to have the same basic additives that the vaunted Castrol GTX has. No moly,boron or magnesium. Has anyone ever accused Castrol GTX of having a "weak" add pack? Also a few of the members here that actually know what they're talking about have stated numerous times that not every element shows up in a cheap $20 analysis.

 

[Blue99]

Officer Farrarfan1 makes a very good point - here's a side-by-side comparison of Valvoline vs. Castrol GTX additives:

Code:

---

Valvoline Castrol GTX

5w30 10w30



Molybdenum 9 2

Potassium 0 2

Boron 8 1

Silicon 7 11

Sodium 6 6

Calcium 1670 2099

Magnesium 9 8

Phosphorus 726 628

Zinc 792 727

---

Source of the 2 used oil analysis for the above element numbers:

Valvoline 5w30 used oil analysis Report

Castrol GTX 10w30 used oil analysis Report

I realize that 5w30 & 10w30 are not the same viscosities, but I could not find a recent Castrol GTX 5w30 that I trusted. (ie, need 2 Blackstone used oil analysis for a valid comparison).

The additives for secondary anti-wear, dispersancy, anti-oxidation, and friction modifiers are present, but are not metallic & thus not detected in a $30 used oil analysis.

Note - Not all brands follow the Chevron-Havoline-Pennzoil formulation template and display high levels of moly & boron.

 

[77GrandPrix]

Thanks for posting that comparison. It appears,based on UOA and user results, that there is at least a few different formulations that will achieve basically the same level of performance. Unfortunately, there are some folks out there that think that if a motor oil doesn't contain moly it is a weak formulation. They choose to disregard UOA results and input from the few true experts that frequent this site.