Motor Oil Prices going STUPID high?

[2ADMNLOVER]

I don't know how accurate it is but I read an article on my Yahoo home page today that said that BP released a study saying that there is only 53.3 more years of oil production at current rates , not counting the Bakkens or shale .

Don't know how much I buy into " peak oil " but I suppose like anything else we'll run out sooner or later .

 

[Indy317]

3) Fed pumping finally producing inflation, but only for one particular product?

Likely a little bit of everything, but on CNBC they have a program called Options Action. One of the guys is a charts guy and he showed the charts for chicken and possibly beef over the last handful of years. Prices have went up. He said it was proof that there has been inflation. I'm not sure if this is the entire cause, but clearly if a company knows that people with money have been able to refinance over the last five or so years to historic low interest rates, they know that they have more discretionary income. It seems that in some cases, with every manufacture, retailer, etc. raising their prices, you end up hearing about more money in the bank, slightly higher dividend payouts, CEOs making bonuses like they used to, etc.. If seems like a never ending cycle. The oil guys raise their prices, car manufactures come out with higher MPG vehicles and figure that more people might want those cars so they raise their prices. The guys who owns the HVAC, home building, etc. type companies have to factor in the higher price of things for their family, but instead of doing with less elsewhere, they raise their labor costs. The HVAC supplier finds this out and figures the service owner is now flush with cash so they raise their price. Everyone who is financially sound to get approved for any decent lending and is a spender and not a saver is winning due to low interest rates. It just seems like everyone one/every entity wants more, so they just raise prices/taxes to get more. Tossing out raises means the employees have more, so now much smaller entities want their cut (plus they might be faced with the higher taxes/services in personal life) so they want more and charge more.

 

[Hohn]

Hmm...I'd never heard that rule of thumb before. Back in the day, the 3 months or 3000 miles was drilled into me as the proper way to maintain a car (right or wrong).

We all learned it...from an industry whose revenues depended on people changing their oil.

Even if it was true, back in the day, oil today is incomparably better than oils of old.

You only need 3k changes if you only get 10 mpg for your 5 qt sump. Which is actually not far off for a big boatyard v8 car from back in the day.

 

[miguel]

I don't work at, or own stock in, Firestone, but they usually have a good deal going: $19.99 Synthetic Blend Oil Change | fcac-lof2-04 | Firestone Complete Auto Care

I was going to try changing my oil myself, then saw the oil I wanted at Walmart for $17. I'll take the other guy doing it for $19.99 any day. And it has nothing to do with the fact I drove my car right over the ramps I borrowed from my friend. Honest.

 

[Hohn]

I don't work at, or own stock in, Firestone, but they usually have a good deal going: $19.99 Synthetic Blend Oil Change | fcac-lof2-04 | Firestone Complete Auto Care

I was going to try changing my oil myself, then saw the oil I wanted at Walmart for $17. I'll take the other guy doing it for $19.99 any day. And it has nothing to do with the fact I drove my car right over the ramps I borrowed from my friend. Honest.

Oil changes are too important to trust to some less-than-ambitious wrench jockey who may or may not strip the plug threads, get debris in there, not refill the filter, etc.

I change my own even if some else would do if for free.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Oil changes are too important to trust to some less-than-ambitious wrench jockey who may or may not strip the plug threads, get debris in there, not refill the filter, etc.

I change my own even if some else would do if for free.

I used to. Since I bought a new Ram with the lifetime warranty, though, I go to the dealership. $22 an oil change if you buy 4 at a time, and I can't do it myself that cheap. No questions if the maintenance is done properly if I have a warranty claim, and if they screw up the Hemi, they are on the hook for it either way. No more than I drive, each oil change lasts me 6 months, and even them I'd doing it by time and not by miles.

I still change the oil in my '78 farm truck, though. Seriously, if none of the local places price match, just order from Amazon. I've got an app on my phone how that lets me scan the barcode on an item and see what Amazon and Amazon marketplace sells it for.

Also, to chime in on the 3k miles thing, yeah, there's no reason to do that now. The oil is better, the filters are better, and manufacturers recommendations for normal use are usually at least 5k-6k miles these days. I used to change the filter on my diesel at 5k and do a full oil change at 10k. The guys who did Blackstone oil analysis doing that usually got results that said they could double the change schedule with no ill effect.

 

[jkaetz]

WM still selling M1 5w-30 for $22/5 quarts. Mobil 1 5W-30, 5qt - Walmart.com

Been buying it for the last 12 years and I've seen it as high as $26 and as low as $21.

3k oil changes are just profit for oil changers. Even back in the 90's studies showed that oils lasted well past the 3k interval. One test on a 97 camaro z28 showed that it made it to about 12k - 15k miles before the oil was actually getting worn out. They did tests every 3k and changed the filter every 6k.

My wife's MB diesel has a variable OLM and typically goes for 14k miles or so in Europe but the US dealers complained of lost oil change revenue so they fixed it to 10k over here.

 

[Tnichols00]

Syntetic is way overrated for normal use on a car, unless you change the oil every 10k miles.

I have never put synthetic in any gas vehicle expect a race car I built when I was younger. I had a Volvo that had 220k on it, a f150 with 260k and both ran like tops.

Yes the synthetic will hold up better against heat, yes it will have longer life but if you are driving your car to and from work and to the shooting range on the weekend you dont need the heat standard that synthetic offers, if you change your oil every 5k miles then you dont need to buy synthetic cause you still have half the life left.

Now if you have a race car or a pulling a load and using your vehicle hard or you like to change oil every 10k miles then I can see a reason to put synthetic in the car.

 

[Hohn]

Syntetic is way overrated for normal use on a car, unless you change the oil every 10k miles.

I have never put synthetic in any gas vehicle expect a race car I built when I was younger. I had a Volvo that had 220k on it, a f150 with 260k and both ran like tops.

Yes the synthetic will hold up better against heat, yes it will have longer life but if you are driving your car to and from work and to the shooting range on the weekend you dont need the heat standard that synthetic offers, if you change your oil every 5k miles then you dont need to buy synthetic cause you still have half the life left.

Now if you have a race car or a pulling a load and using your vehicle hard or you like to change oil every 10k miles then I can see a reason to put synthetic in the car.

Pardon my resume recital, but I feel I must add some prefatory qualifications to my remarks.

Engines are my job. In addition to my experience in product development for a prominent Indiana engine company, I've studied oil and lubrication a good deal. I also used to sit next to a true lubrication expert (tribologist) and have had lengthy conversations with him regarding oil and lubrication. Everyone has their own opinion about oil, but not all opinions are equally valid. Mine is more informed by knowledge and experience than very many others.

Assuming by "synthetic" one means a true group IV PAO or group V Ester base oil, then it is simply fact that synthetic oils are better lubricants in several ways: higher viscosity index, lower oxidation, far more shear stable, etc. They have lower friction and can reduce parasitic losses by as much as 3% for SAE rated oils, 5% for racing (non-SAE certified) oils. (Detergency requirements reduce slipperiness)

Synthetics excel at cold temps because of the higher viscosity index (vi). For cold starts in winter conditions, synthetics can reduce oil pressure delay by 50% or more. Pour points are much lower than petro oils.

They excel also at high temps, as you indicate.

As a liquid lubricant, synthetics outclass petro (group 2 or lower) unilaterally and unconditionally.
As lubrication is the primary use of motor oil, this would point to synthetics being "better" oils.

However, oil has other functions as well. Oil is the primary cooling medium for the engine's reciprocating parts. In addition to cooling, oil must also store and disperse contaminants generated by the engine during operation. It must neutralize crank case acids. Etc.

The question of technical superiority of synthetic lubricants is not really debatable; it is a consensus among those who know. The question of valuation, however, is much more difficult to agree upon. It is subjective and varies with the weighting of the factors that you consider to be important.

Synthetics can be changed less frequently in some cases, but almost never enough to offset the cost premium of using them. You can't magically run the oil 35k miles because you use a synthetic (looking at you, Amsoil cultists). Remember that whole "storing contaminants" function. You must drain the oil to purge them, they cannot be filtered out.

Synthetics will lower the wear rate of critical parts of the engine. That may mean you get 600k before you hit the same wear as you'd hit at 300k or 400k without. Does that matter for you? For most, it won't. We simply won't drive the car long enough to ever benefit from that extra 200k of reduced wear. The rest of the car is long since dead.

As conventional oils have vastly improved, they have undercut almost all of the argument for the cost- effectiveness of synthetics as motor oils.

i use synthetics because I have a duty cycle where the difference matters far more. My trucks gets a cold start every morning, and only runs for 15 min or so before I arrive at work. The engine rarely reaches operating temperature.

That means that my oil is always too thick. Far too thick. This means excessive oil pressure delay, and reduced flow while the engine is too cold.

Thus, the far better fluidity of a synthetic matters much more in this usage. It's probably STILL not cost effective for me to use premium synthetics, but I will continue using them for this application.

In the summer, the synthetic isn't nearly as much help. While synthetics do very well at extremely high oil temperatures, the engine will never see the high oil temperatures if it is in proper running condition, even on the hottest summer day. Once the engine is warmed up, the oil temperature does not really respond to outside temperature conditions. It is the same on the hottest summer day as it is the dead of winter.

In my opinion, even the diehard user of synthetic oil should consider switching to petroleum oil as the engine ages. Once the car is 8 or so years old, there's little value in having a great engine in a junky car with everything else worn out. Unless you intend to somehow separate the car from its engine, you get no ROI on premium lubes after the vehicle has gotten old. Unless you keep a vehicle for several decades, it makes little sense.

For other vehicle fluids, synthetics make sense almost always; indeed most OEM fluids are synthetic now. Factory differentials often have synthetic gear oil in them, and almost all factory ATFs are now synthetic.(which is why the cost so much). Factory grease in your sealed unit bearings and CV joints is almost certainly synthetic, too.

If you are like me and just want to give your engine the best, then go for the synthetics. They are rarely, if ever, cost effective though. If they were, every large trucking company would use them in their fleet.

 

[Hohn]

I used to. Since I bought a new Ram with the lifetime warranty, though, I go to the dealership. $22 an oil change if you buy 4 at a time, and I can't do it myself that cheap. No questions if the maintenance is done properly if I have a warranty claim, and if they screw up the Hemi, they are on the hook for it either way. No more than I drive, each oil change lasts me 6 months, and even them I'd doing it by time and not by miles.

I'd do similarly if I had a vehicle under warranty and a service contract.

 

[Tnichols00]

Pardon my resume recital, but I feel I must add some prefatory qualifications to my remarks.

Engines are my job. In addition to my experience in product development for a prominent Indiana engine company, I've studied oil and lubrication a good deal. I also used to sit next to a true lubrication expert (tribologist) and have had lengthy conversations with him regarding oil and lubrication. Everyone has their own opinion about oil, but not all opinions are equally valid. Mine is more informed by knowledge and experience than very many others.

Assuming by "synthetic" one means a true group IV PAO or group V Ester base oil, then it is simply fact that synthetic oils are better lubricants in several ways: higher viscosity index, lower oxidation, far more shear stable, etc. They have lower friction and can reduce parasitic losses by as much as 3% for SAE rated oils, 5% for racing (non-SAE certified) oils. (Detergency requirements reduce slipperiness)

Synthetics excel at cold temps because of the higher viscosity index (vi). For cold starts in winter conditions, synthetics can reduce oil pressure delay by 50% or more. Pour points are much lower than petro oils.

They excel also at high temps, as you indicate.

As a liquid lubricant, synthetics outclass petro (group 2 or lower) unilaterally and unconditionally.
As lubrication is the primary use of motor oil, this would point to synthetics being "better" oils.

However, oil has other functions as well. Oil is the primary cooling medium for the engine's reciprocating parts. In addition to cooling, oil must also store and disperse contaminants generated by the engine during operation. It must neutralize crank case acids. Etc.

The question of technical superiority of synthetic lubricants is not really debatable; it is a consensus among those who know. The question of valuation, however, is much more difficult to agree upon. It is subjective and varies with the weighting of the factors that you consider to be important.

Synthetics can be changed less frequently in some cases, but almost never enough to offset the cost premium of using them. You can't magically run the oil 35k miles because you use a synthetic (looking at you, Amsoil cultists). Remember that whole "storing contaminants" function. You must drain the oil to purge them, they cannot be filtered out.

Synthetics will lower the wear rate of critical parts of the engine. That may mean you get 600k before you hit the same wear as you'd hit at 300k or 400k without. Does that matter for you? For most, it won't. We simply won't drive the car long enough to ever benefit from that extra 200k of reduced wear. The rest of the car is long since dead.

As conventional oils have vastly improved, they have undercut almost all of the argument for the cost- effectiveness of synthetics as motor oils.

i use synthetics because I have a duty cycle where the difference matters far more. My trucks gets a cold start every morning, and only runs for 15 min or so before I arrive at work. The engine rarely reaches operating temperature.

That means that my oil is always too thick. Far too thick. This means excessive oil pressure delay, and reduced flow while the engine is too cold.

Thus, the far better fluidity of a synthetic matters much more in this usage. It's probably STILL not cost effective for me to use premium synthetics, but I will continue using them for this application.

In the summer, the synthetic isn't nearly as much help. While synthetics do very well at extremely high oil temperatures, the engine will never see the high oil temperatures if it is improper running condition, even on the hottest summer day. Once the engine is warmed up, the oil temperature does not really respond to outside temperature conditions. It is the same on the hottest summer day as it is the dead of winter.

In my opinion, even the diehard user of synthetic oil should consider switching to petroleum oil as the engine ages. Once the car is 8 or so years old, there's little value in having a great engine in a junky car with everything else worn out. Unless you intend to somehow separate the car from its engine, you get no ROI on premium lubes after the vehicle has gotten old. Unless you keep a vehicle for several decades, it makes little sense.

For other vehicle fluids, synthetics make sense almost always; indeed most OEM fluids are synthetic now. Factory differentials often have synthetic gear oil in them, and almost all factory ATFs are now synthetic.(which is why the cost so much). Factory grease in your sealed unit bearings and CV joints is almost certainly synthetic, too.

If you are like me and just want to give your engine the best, then go for the synthetics. They are rarely, if ever, cost effective though. If they were, every large trucking company would use them in their fleet.

WOW ... Way to just lay it all out there for the group lol. Great information!!

I have had only a few vehicles that I have ran a synthetic in, one of them was a 430whp Toyota MR2, I would only run Royal Purple. And my diesel trucks, while most days they are treated like a driveway princess they do get worked hard on other days and dont ever really feel I will sell the current truck I have so I might as well get all the life out of it I can. Rotella Syn got me to 337k and counting.

 

[dvd1955]

I actually thought prices of dinosaur oil were dropping. Rural King has theirs priced at $1.79/qt. I thought it was a sale a couple of months ago, so bought 2 cases, but I now see it has been that prices ever since.

 

[Hohn]

One last comment:

The term "synthetic" for oil is now a marketing term exclusively. When Castol started marketing Group III oils (hydrocracked petro, >120 viscosity index), they were sued by Mobil (Mobil 1- a true Group IV PAO or polyalphaolefin synthetic at the time) for lying about the product.

Mobil lost. The court ruled in favor of Castrol that an oil that performed similarly to a synthetic, and that had been so severely hydrocracked that it was technically "synthesized" was a "synthetic" oil, even if it was derived from petroleum.

So a "full synthetic" might not have any group IV or V base oils at all. Not anymore. There's nothing on a label you can read that will tell you if the oil is Group 3, or 4, or what. Heck, even Mobil 1-- which USED to be PAO is now a group III oil.

As a result, oil manufacturers lost all incentive to use the more costly PAO bases, and the vast majority of "synthetics" are largely Group III or blends of III and IV.


It's better, rather to looks at spec sheets. The important specs are Viscosity at 40C (you want this as low as possible) and Hi Temp Hi Shear (HTHS)-- this should be 3.0 or better, with 3.5 preferred.

It's a tradeoff between them, so compromise as you see fit.