Which Premium Oil To Offer?

In the end its a business decision. Pick a well known brand that customers recognize and has a competitive price for you. A few years down the road you will likely change again as contracts come up.
 
cheesepuffs2 said:
Ok so tell me then how are you going to prove to Amsoil corporate that you the user didn't simply under fill the sump by accident?
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I think this would apply to every oil manufacturer when it comes to engine failures and the customer starting a claim and that is, the company's first response will be "deny, deny, deny". The customer has to prove the oil was at fault and say "pretty, pretty please" and the oil company can still deny the claim.
 
For an auto shop the OP would need to stock a few oils with diff viscosities and applications and will want to buy it in bulk.
Cheapest synth oils with the variety he needs from a single supplier will give him best pricing and better returns.
He'd also want assurance the oils are at least up to the task. I'm not sure if SuperTech is available in drums or kegs thou but ST could be an option.

My bud who is an auto shop owner and mech used to use ST then switched to Klondike thou many of his customers request or bring other oils, mind you he doesn't do oil changes for a living as his shop is all mech jobs shop including custom engine builds, custom suspension, fabrication etc.

Personally, I just buy Pennzoil on sale and take advantage of their MIR, they allow 4 5L jugs per person/household at the moment, but I already had some on hands - Pennzoil, Rotella, Castrol, Valvoline, ST, Kirkland and M1; so I'm good for about 3 years now which is over my normal 1.5-2 years stock.
Not sure how it is in USA since it's been a long time I bought oil in USA, but in Canada I see a steep increase in regular and sale oil prices lately e.g. sale price of a jug I paid C$13 2 years ago is now C$22 (also sale price). I do fill up with gas in USA mostly thou saving about C$25 a tank compared to Canadian gas prices.
 
Hall said:
I think this would apply to every oil manufacturer when it comes to engine failures and the customer starting a claim and that is, the company's first response will be "deny, deny, deny". The customer has to prove the oil was at fault and say "pretty, pretty please" and the oil company can still deny the claim.
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Exactly. Those oil warranties are purely marketing jargon. There's virtually no way you can prove that the oil was truly at fault even if it really was, and anybody who thinks Amsoil or any other oil brand is in business to pay for peoples engine rebuilds on the whims of their customers is a fool
 
cheesepuffs2 said:
He's trying to make a profit here. Which one of his employees that's on the clock is going to spend the necessary time each day explaining what MB 229.5 and ACEA C3 is to random people coming in off the street that don't even know what 0W-40 means? Also the general public doesn't even care. Mind you they're bringing their car to an independent shop, so that means the vast majority of these customer cars are already out of warranty and MB 229.5 doesn't matter to them, that's jibberish at that point.
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Exactly.

Besides, it’s a liability issue for the shop. Plain and simple.
 
I don’t know about in the Minneapolis area, but I have seen lube chain stores under the following oil brands: Valvoline, Pennzoil, and Quaker State. There may be others but these are some that I’ve seen and you don’t want to compete with their branding.

I think you should streamline this so that you’re not spending time trying to upsell customers from one synthetic to another. I would phase out the generic/no name synthetic and just carry ONE single brand of synthetic in multiple viscosities as needed. Mobil one is one of the more recognizable brands but then again, not everyone knows any kind of oil brand and many car owners have no knowledge of brands other than gasoline brands. If you just offer one brand of synthetic, you really streamline the process, no need for up selling, and your economy of scale for purchase discounts from just one distributor goes up so that even though you only have the one brand which is premium, you can either make more profit and or offer your customers better value. So, if you choose Mobil one for example, just offer Mobil one exclusively.
 
I think generally people will recommend Mobil1. Plain and simple for most cars.
Problem might happen with European cars, particularly BMW.

If you see BMW’s in your garage, you will have to offer other oils. Mobil1 with the switch to current base stocks dropped all BMW approvals due to oxidation requirements of updated BMW approvals in 2018. Therefore, Castrol, Pennzoil and Valvoline in that case would be good choice to have just in case.
 
Most people really don't care about the certifications and what oil is the "best."

My dad, who is very smart about many things, doesn't really understand much about oil. He just wants to know what the "right" oil is. I'll show him some options, and he usually orders it off Amazon of buys it at Walmart. Usually it's Castrol 5w-40 or 0w-40.
 
cheesepuffs2 said:
Exactly. Those oil warranties are purely marketing jargon. There's virtually no way you can prove that the oil was truly at fault even if it really was, and anybody who thinks Amsoil or any other oil brand is in business to pay for peoples engine rebuilds on the whims of their customers is a fool
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Did I ever say that? No I didn’t, cheesepuff. In fact I said that there will likely never be a claim because a properly formulated motor oil will not be the cause of an engine failure.

Get a grip, please.
 
kschachn said:
Did I ever say that? No I didn’t, cheesepuff. In fact I said that there will likely never be a claim because a properly formulated motor oil will not be the cause of an engine failure.

Get a grip, please.
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That bold text was aimed at the notion of these oil warranties in general and was not personally guided at you, so I'm not sure why you're taking it personal.

If there will virtually never be a claim anyway, then what's the point of the warranty even existing? Marketing. Which was my point of that post. Oil warranties are marketing fluff and nothing more.
 
kschachn said:
Yeah I agree. Unfortunate but true, technical ignorance lies on both sides of the transaction.
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Is it really ignorance though, or is it merely being practical? There are plenty of things the average person can spend time becoming educated on that would make more of an impact on their lives than knowing the ins and outs of ACEA ratings. At the end of the day, the contents of this forum is very niche. To non-enthusiast consumers, a simple, "is this oil ok for my car? Yes?", is good enough.

Put it this way, everybody uses motor oil, and everybody also uses knives. There are knife enthusiasts that focus hard on the metallurgy of blades, sharpness, edge profile, handle construction, weight balance in the hand, resistance to corrosion, etc. But I'm willing to bet that most members of this forum simply grab a knife out of their kitchen drawer each day without thinking twice and subconsciously go, "yup, it's cutting the meat on the plate alright". To the knife enthusiast, that's ignorance, but does it actually matter in a practical sense, as long as your steak knife cuts the steak? Not really. It only matters if that topic catches your interest for whatever reason and you decide to keep digging for perfection.

For the majority of the population, the oil that simply lubricates the engine is acceptable, and the knife that simply cuts the steak is acceptable. I wouldn't say that's unfortunate, I would just say that people's individual needs are being met accordingly.
 
dubber09 said:
I'm not sure if SuperTech is available in drums or kegs thou but ST could be an option.
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SuperTech is Walmart's house brand so there's no point in packaging it in 55-gallon and larger units. Even WM's oil-change centers don't use SuperTech. That said, Warren makes that oil and also sells it under their MAG1 brand. As MAG1, it is available in bulk packaging. Thing is, the average person - ones who pay shops to change their oil - haven't heard of MAG1 let alone SuperTech.
 
I would go with your distributor has. Mobil 1 and Castrol. As far a HDEO. Probably shell rotella T-6 5/40. As far has Euro spec oil. Mobil 1 0/40
 
Hall said:
SuperTech is Walmart's house brand so there's no point in packaging it in 55-gallon and larger units. Even WM's oil-change centers don't use SuperTech. That said, Warren makes that oil and also sells it under their MAG1 brand. As MAG1, it is available in bulk packaging. Thing is, the average person - ones who pay shops to change their oil - haven't heard of MAG1 let alone SuperTech.
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Also sell it as proline, we use it for fleet vehicles.
 
Bullwinkle007 said:
I would go with your distributor has. Mobil 1 and Castrol. As far a HDEO. Probably shell rotella T-6 5/40. As far has Euro spec oil. Mobil 1 0/40
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So far no sign of the OP. I'm just curious what the distributor would charge vs what Walmart charges on the shelf. I wonder if the distributor was more than Walmart, if you could just order all the oil you needed directly from Walmart.
 
cheesepuffs2 said:
That bold text was aimed at the notion of these oil warranties in general and was not personally guided at you, so I'm not sure why you're taking it personal.

If there will virtually never be a claim anyway, then what's the point of the warranty even existing? Marketing. Which was my point of that post. Oil warranties are marketing fluff and nothing more.
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I believe Amsoil has put their money where their mouth is on more than one occasion. Not just marketing fluff.
 
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