Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
It's about time that the manufacturers stopped using viscosity in their labeling. They should call a certain oil, "strawberry" and another "apple, and one "apricot" and so on. Just require one of these oils for warranty and let oil companies label the corresponding oil with the right fruit. Then, people could stop worrying about thin oils and mechanics could stop giving bad advice. Just change with the correct oil based on an OLM and be done with it. A marker could be put in each oil for warranty purposes, maybe a color dye. That way a quick lube place or a dishonest dealer would have to work harder to cheat customers with substandard oil.
While we do need to know more info than just viscosity at only two data points, reducing the amount of information available to the consumer is NOT the way to go.
Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
The reason something like this might help is a situation near where I work. There is a quick lube business that has one 55 gallon drum hooked up to a hose and a pump and every car that goes through there gets this oil, from a late model BMW or turbo VW to an old domestic pickup. The drum has a label on it that reads, "National 10w-30". I've looked at receipts from co-workers that go there. One receipt read, "5w-20" and another "5w-30" and a third, "0w-40". No one has to worry about them, anymore. They got caught up in one of those TV reports and exposed for charging for work they did not do.
And how exactly will that help?
Cheaters gonna cheat, and labeling oil "Apricot" is not going to stop the cheaters, just like a barrel labeled "10w-30" didn't stop them from using it for other applications.