What is the opinion on castrol here on bitog?

F

Flyingdutchman

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Nov 18, 2020
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I am not trying to bash any brand here, but from what i have observed in the past there was somewhat of a negative view on castrol oils with not delivering super clean engines and for dropping their in the usa popular 0w40 syntetic oil.
After that it seems i dont see many threads or users with castrol which is remarkable because i assume they are in the top 5 biggest brands.
I could be wrong in this.

Is it just coincidence that i dont read about them a lot or are not many bitogers using it (anymore)?

I work at one of the largest wind turbine manufacturers and most of the fluids/greases come from castrol so it would seem they are doing something good. Also VAG group as one of the biggest car manufactures still uses them. BMW dropped them at around 2012 and went to shell which is pretty remarkable because bmw castrol was almost famous in the car world.

Now planning to rebuild my bmw diff and the oem prescribed oil is/was castrol. I am not sure yet if i will go to castrol or different brand but probably will order the oem spec castrol again.

I am curious on what your view/experience is on castrol.
 
I think that the love or dedication for brands just come & go. Castrol is not a value driven brand the way that SuperTech or Havoline(Chevron) or some SOPUS(QS) are/once were...ST seems to be getting a bit high in price lately and Havoline comes & goes on store shelves. Sometimes I don't see Havoline for years then, there it is again.

Castrol, it seems, is known for the performance of their products which allows the user to sleep well at night. I have and will continue to use Castrol products though not exclusively nor often. Just like Mobil/Mobil 1 products. I use'em, just not often.
 
Topped off my oil yesterday and noticed the oil fill cap of my 2007 is embossed, "Volvo recommends Castrol".
I've no idea if the marriage is still in force.
I associate Castrol with better products but there are several choices in the 'better' category.
Do-it-yourselfers tend to lean away from premium brands in my estimation.
So, with Covid changing personal buying habits/preferences and warehouse stores enduring supply upheavals and what I believe is a reduction in their advertising (...it's liquid engineering"), there might not be enough flow to establish a group opinion.
 
Flyingdutchman said:
I am not trying to bash any brand here, but from what i have observed in the past there was somewhat of a negative view on castrol oils with not delivering super clean engines and for dropping their in the usa popular 0w40 syntetic oil.
Click to expand...
What do you mean by, delivering super clean engines? That's more dependent on how often you change the oil than the oil itself. Wasn't there a poster here from Europe a few years who went on about not changing his oil until 15,000 miles and how anyone that changes it more often was being wasteful?
 
Castrol oil is proven, just look at the approvals their different oils carry, just like other mfg oils that carry the same approvals (if it isn't faked). It is a much better testimate of performance level than who loves Castrol vs. Mobil 1 the most.
 
Castrol is good oil but for the price it isn't. I'll use it on my cars in a heartbeat. There are other competitive top tier brands that are cheaper that can also give the same protection (most likely even better) to your car's engine as Castrol.
 
Prior to German Castrol 0w30, the opinion of Castrol was quite low. Their synthetics in the early 2000s were not that good. Over time they started to make better synethetics as demand grew for synthetic oil. EDGE EP is a good oil IMO and they do make others that are good as well such as their 0w40. Overall though they have always seemed to be a company that focused more heavily on marketing than delivering a top tier product. However, the current Castrol EDGE/EDGE EP are likely as good as any of the other top tier oils from other brands.
 
Way back in the '60s Castrol was a popular brand. Remember the scene in 'American Graffiti' when Steve told Toad to 'only use Castrol R in his '58 Chevy' while he was gone off to college.'

Chevy.webp
 
buster said:
Prior to German Castrol 0w30, the opinion of Castrol was quite low. Their synthetics in the early 2000s were not that good. Over time they started to make better synethetics as demand grew for synthetic oil. EDGE EP is a good oil IMO and they do make others that are good as well such as their 0w40. Overall though they have always seemed to be a company that focused more heavily on marketing than delivering a top tier product. However, the current Castrol EDGE/EDGE EP are likely as good as any of the other top tier oils from other brands.
Click to expand...
Oh look, an elder from the early 2K's same as me. Remember the craziness here about German Castrol? I think AutoZone was the best place to buy it.
Then it went from green to gold. The bottom fell out and no one liked it. :D
 
Ah yes, the magical green German Castrol 0W30! Made of unicorn tears & fairy dust, only here for a little while. Then they moved production to Belgium and it was never the same again! I actually use Magnatec (5W20), along with quite a few others (5W30 in Ford Ecoboost applications) with good results. BP actually makes Castrol, so it can’t be all bad.
 
I like their stuff. I've got about 4 or 5 oil changes worth of their GTX Ultraclean and the GTX synthetic in my garage and I have Ultraclean in the Camry now. I don't consider them better or worse than anyone else.
 
In the 2000's, the only people that used Castrol were BMW owners......

....they have improved greatly since then.
 
FWIW I went from Valvoline to Castrol back in the 90's when Mark martin lost his Valvoline sponsorship. I had good luck with both oils. I used conventional Castrol for many years prior to switching to Mobil 1 synthetic. Honestly I thought Castrol made good products and got many miles out of my vehicles and OPE using it. I'd use it again if I could find good deals on it.

For years the Canadian version of NASCAR (CASCAR) was sponsored by Castrol and I supported Castrol in turn...

just my $0.02
 
Castrol, through Wakefield Canada, has worked really, really hard to make Castrol the number 1 oil in Canada.
Edge synthetic now is; don’t know about GTX. Castrol oils are everywhere up here.
 
atikovi said:
What do you mean by, delivering super clean engines? That's more dependent on how often you change the oil than the oil itself. Wasn't there a poster here from Europe a few years who went on about not changing his oil until 15,000 miles and how anyone that changes it more often was being wasteful?
Click to expand...
I believe that fellow is walking now or taking the bus , worn camshaft .
 
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