Why do you use the oil brand you use?

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As you can see from my sig, I use three different brands, so I'm not brand loyal. I simply feel that for each vehicle I've chosen very high quality oils. For the Corvette in particular I really like the ESP Formula 5w30, the specs are very good and I feel it's even better than the ESP Formula 0w40 that is factory fill on the Corvettes now.
 
Originally Posted by 53' Stude
This got me thinking. Some folks here I see are brand loyal. I wondered why some folks use say Pennzoil, Valvoline etc.

Some of us use clearance oils (myself included) and I am not brand loyal as I vote with my wallet
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Because it was full synthetic and was on sale and perhaps with a rebate. I am not a fan of any brand.
 
Originally Posted by 53' Stude
This got me thinking. Some folks here I see are brand loyal. I wondered why some folks use say Pennzoil, Valvoline etc.

Some of us use clearance oils (myself included) and I am not brand loyal as I vote with my wallet
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I use QSUD, because of great UOAs, price and availability.
 
Originally Posted by Eddie
Seems like I and possibly one other pick an oil based on UOAs. Too many BITOGer pick an oil because of the name or color of the bottle. Shame on you and I thought this was an elate group of oil enthusiasts. :-))

While i don't browse the UOA forum much (I did a little research there recently looking for results on my '18 Santa Fe), are there any modern oils that constantly produce poor UOA's? Sure we may have an engine here and there, but those are usually specific engines, not the oil.
 
Originally Posted by Eddie
Seems like I and possibly one other pick an oil based on UOAs. Too many BITOGer pick an oil because of the name or color of the bottle. Shame on you and I thought this was an elate group of oil enthusiasts. :-))

I think the chance of me easily finding a UOA for an oil that interests me in my particular engine is pretty slim.
VOAs are different stories, I spent many hours poring over this page after I was first pointed to it...
http://www.pqiamerica.com/March2013PCMO/Marchsyntheticsallfinal.html
Unfortunately, even at that time some of the oils were no longer sold (the two Pennzoils) or had been reformulated (Edge switched a high calcium formulation around that time).
UOAs aren't going to show interesting things like Noack loss and CCS viscosity, anyway.
And, do I really care about a UOA from somebody else's engine when I don't know its maintenance history or how the vehicle is used?
 
Originally Posted by Virtus_Probi
Originally Posted by Eddie
Seems like I and possibly one other pick an oil based on UOAs. Too many BITOGer pick an oil because of the name or color of the bottle. Shame on you and I thought this was an elate group of oil enthusiasts. :-))

I think the chance of me easily finding a UOA for an oil that interests me in my particular engine is pretty slim.
VOAs are different stories, I spent many hours poring over this page after I was first pointed to it...
http://www.pqiamerica.com/March2013PCMO/Marchsyntheticsallfinal.html
Unfortunately, even at that time some of the oils were no longer sold (the two Pennzoils) or had been reformulated (Edge switched a high calcium formulation around that time).
UOAs aren't going to show interesting things like Noack loss and CCS viscosity, anyway.
And, do I really care about a UOA from somebody else's engine when I don't know its maintenance history or how the vehicle is used?


Virtus_Probi,

What do you use in your Forester XT?
 
Originally Posted by jbutch


Virtus_Probi,

What do you use in your Forester XT?

I have used more M1 5W30 than anything else, trying the 0W30 AFE right now.
Have also used these 5W30s...QSUD, Pennzoil Gold, M1 ESP Formula, M1 AP, Valvoline FS, and M1 EP.
 
Top brand with value pricing.
PUP with MIR for 10K oci.
If I need to stretch the oci to 15K, I would go with M1EP with MIR.
Also, Always Fram XG for all my cars.
 
I'm typically not brand loyal. I'm currently using:
5W30 M1 in my daughter's Nissan Sentra.
M1EP 0W20 in my other daughter's Toyota Corolla
M1HM in my '97 Ford F250HD
Kendall GT-1 Max 5W20 in my wife's Dodge Journey

And Phillips 66 Guardol ECT 10W30 in my Freightliner semi truck. When warmer ambient temperatures come back around, I'll switch over to Guardol ECT 15W40.
 
Lately for my hdeo stuff I have been on a Vavoline kick. I have been trying to stick with American based companies but I also use Castrol or anything good that is on sale.
I used a lot of kendall in the past but my stash is running out
 
I bounce between M1 and PP, as I think they're both high-quality oils, and they both periodically offer decent rebates.
 
Not brand loyal at all.
My old trk gets whatever I have in stash
5-30
10-30
10-40
Running Smittys now that I got free.
Wife's car gets Penn's Ultra that I got for 1 dollar a qt..
I have a bunch of:
Peak
Smittys
Amalie
Valvoline Nexgen
When the time comes for me to actually pay for oil I probably go with ST or any namebrand that is on sale.
I am years away from buying oil.
 
When I was in grade 10, my auto shop teacher was a huge fan of Mobil 1. He had driven a Jetta to north of 1 million Km, at which point they took it and gave him a new one, or that's how the story goes anyways. He had more than 500,000Km on his replacement when I took his course. He had torn down tons of engines over the years and was quite emphatic about how using a synthetic oil was a superior choice. Now keep in mind, this was back in the "Tri-syn" M1 days, before the Castrol BBB dispute...etc. We are talking early to mid 1990's.

He got me excited about M1, at which point I got my dad using it in everything we owned.

My grandfather stocked cases of whatever he got on sale for our boats. 10w-30, 10w-40 and 20w-50. One year it was Valvoline white bottle, the next it would be Castrol GTX. Seemed to do the job, however I got him on the synthetic bandwagon too with the high dollar engines.

Anyways, when I got my first car, I ran M1 in it and ran it in pretty much everything else since. Of course I've used other synthetics over the years: Pennzoil Ultra, AMSOIL, Royal Purple, Motul, but I always seem to end up back at M1
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The cheapest one that meets spec regardless of brand. I avoid brands that put colouring in the oil and charge more than double the price.

I'm more loyal to the origin of the oil than the brand.
 
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