Why don't more people support smaller operations

[javacontour]

Most people can't afford a Ferrari and they can afford Royal Purple. Can you prove a Ferrari is better (not just faster) than a Toyota?

Define better. If you need to move a family of 5, the Toyota is probably better than a Ferrari. If you need to win at LeMans, the Ferrari is probably better than Toyota.

Better is only useful when there is are specific criteria for comparison.

 

[4WD]

Robot or human?

 

[slacktide_bitog]

FRAM (First Brands now) and Amalie aren't "small operations". Amalie has been around since 1903 and is the largest private blender in the Americas. Amalie was owned by Witco until the mid 90's and was then purchased, along with Kendall by Sunoco. This was the case until '97 when it was purchased by its current owners (the Barkett's) who had gone into the oil business in 1977 by buying Petroleum Packers (there's a decent Wiki on this).

I didn't know Amalie was larger than Highline Warren (formerly WPP) or even Warren Oil/Unilube

Small blenders would be companies like HPL, Joe Gibbs...etc.

Small-ish blenders would be companies like Royal Purple (before they were gobbled up by Calamut), Redline (before they were gobbled up by P66), AMSOIL, Lucas (who I wouldn't buy from if you paid me)...etc.

Then you get into larger players, but still small compared to Mobil/Castrol/Shell like Motul, Fuchs, Liqui-Moly, Ravenol...etc.

I thought L-M was smaller than that, but I guess not

There's also Smitty's/Cam2

 

[Brice]

I’m going to try the DuraMax oil from Reladyne whenever it shows up at Grainer. HPL seems like the closest thing to BITOG store brand we can get.

 

[RaRa]

Spec and find small brand expensive because you have looking your cars spec there may small companies who fail test done API so it better go with names brand or know brand ( super tech Kirkland or chevron mobil 1 etc)

 

[aquariuscsm]

I was going to say RP and RL, but both are no longer mom and pop companies, they are now corporate owned.

 

[Slow Car Sport Mode]

As @OVERKILL mentioned.. High Performance Lubricants. You may have to go the extra step of ordering online or maybe stopping into Manteno, IL if that is local to you, but that oil would be amazing to switch to. Great stuff.

As mentioned, I think they would qualify as a "small blender" or "smaller operation" but Dave is active on this board and can answer anything specific about that.

He and the guys like him have forgotten more than I'll ever know about motor oil, I'll just be taking notes, the time is almost at hand.

 

[Silver]

I don't trust them, as I don't trust any relatively small business anymore.

Too inconvenient to obtain.

Usually priced at a premium I can only assume is not warranted.

 

[Slow Car Sport Mode]

I don't trust them, as I don't trust any relatively small business anymore.

Too inconvenient to obtain.

Usually priced at a premium I can only assume is not warranted.

You've touched on it.. price has always been the hardest part of using a small business over (Amazon and Walmart for everything except specialty items you maybe can't get from either.)

Shopping on the basis of price is a huge part of being frugal.

 

[Urshurak776]

Amalie makes O’Reilly house oil. Most people have O’Reillys auto parts.