Well in as much as the subject has changed. Aside from WM treatment of employees, which I doubt varies much from other big box stores. I am a daily WM shopper since my local WM is < a mile away. Generally meets most of my needs. Of course items like SS bolts&screws require a hardware store, marine products, a marine supplier, etc.
For other stuff there is the online source named after a S. American River.
Getting back to the initial topic: WM still sells Slick 50 at the best price around town.
Do you want your ice-cream with vanilla or strawberry ?
ā ā ā ā , I did not want any ice-cream to begin with 
My WM has a DQ, but a cone for the price of a half gallon of ice cream?
My issues with WM are many but take a look at the products they sell. They sell the cheapest grade of so many things. Those Douglas tires are complete garbage if you ask me and unsafe. I personally had one near catastrophic failure and know of others who have had blowouts on the highway with them. Another friend bought them and had so many flats on her gravel road (this was never a problem with her old tires) that she had to switch them out long before they were really worn out. That is the house brand. Then there is the Goodyear Viva or whatever that is a cheaper made tire only sold at WM. Then there are the batteries which many like to call Neverstartā¦
I personally work on computers and electronics for a living so see that side of things. Name brands make special models only sold at WM and they are much lower quality and spec. Then there are the no-names. All this is just disposable stuff. Sure, it may cost less but the rate of failure is so high that it isnāt saving people money. You have to look at the model number to make sure you are actually getting something that is sold elsewhere. If only sold at WM, avoid it.
Then there are the customers. People with the āWal-Mart mentalityā of just wanting cheap without regards for any other aspect are always my most problematic customers. Then there is the service and overall store experience which has been going down in recent years.
I canāt tell the difference between a Walmart $3.00 box of Cheerios than a 5.00 box from Publix. Being somewhat facetious here! But yes, you ensure the same quality level on items the SKU or mfg numbers need to be compared. Their house brand SS beverage containers seem to be equal to the 3X brand name.
Yeah, I compared treadwear ratings and other aspects of tires sold at WM vs other stores and they were all lower at WM. The model numbers at WM are slightly different but very similar to those sold at real tire stores for more money.
I figure stuff regulated by the FDA is going to at least be safe although meat and seafood from China concern me. I have no problem buying toothpaste and such there and it is sometimes cheaper.
I just donāt care if I spend an extra $10-20 an oil change every 3 months on a $40-50,000 piece of machinery, so Iāll just stick with Mobil 1. Like I said before though, I used to use Pennzoil in everything, even my lawn mower, but every engine I opened up had that filthy residue all over, plus it really screwed up the rings on my diesel I believe. Once I switched, my engines are clean inside. I guess itās just their formula.
Iāve never found the need to go to a Walmart and didnāt know there was one in my town until I just looked it up. Much easier to get everything on Amazon.
If youāve got the money to spare to fatten the pockets of Mobilās Marketing Department and stockholders, more power to you. The money you waste adds to our GDP. Iām busy saving for retirement. Iāve got better things to spend that money on, like Mobil stock so people like you can fatten my pockets.
Heh heh. Iām already retired so Iām trying to get rid of it in time. Iām kind of brand conscious though and donāt trust off brands. Ya gotta balance the cost of the equipment with the cost of maintenance.
I am sure their profits get cut by those who submit the rebates and make the cost of the oil and filter the same or less than the store brand on a normal day. Also, anyone who does business with Wal-Mart seems to get bent over. They barely make anything, if anything at all. Why is the same oil over $50 at any parts store and $22 at Wal-Mart? Sure, the filter is a few bucks but it seems like a no brainer when you get $17 back per oil change. There is a reason they limit you to TWO rebate submissions per rebate season. They are not making money on this deal.
Wal-Mart squeezes their vendors and the end result isnāt always good. At least this lower cost oil hasnāt been cheapened.
I agree that paying full price for the name brands is stupid and would probably opt for a store brand if it wasnāt for these deals. I always have a stockpile of the stuff from the rebates for future use. I max them out even if I donāt need to.
Here is the one I usually do. It seems to roll around every spring and fall like clockwork. https://mobiloil.com/en/promotion/mobil-promotions/synthetic-motor-oil-coupon
Here is a current Pennzoil one and I would do it if I needed synthetic oil right now. https://www.pennzoil.com/en_us/promotions/do-it-yourself-oil-change/promotion-14.html#iframe=L2RpeS9GYWxsTUlSMTgv
I would do the $20 off gas but would have to take my truck and probably a couple large gas cans to make it work.
A close friend became involved with Bentonville years ago and found it was a no win bickering with them over building materials under a guaranteed contract and contrary to her boss she took my advice and advised that it wasnāt worthwhile to attempt to low bid a contract and the COO allowed her to handle the big box store like any other customer who called and while the result was the low bidder got 100% of the business by contract their effort to just break even resulted in being late with JIT deliveries and my friends business had the needed product in stock and ready to ship at the stock price with no discount despite other customers of that size getting discounts and often free delivery. My friend stuck her neck out and made her corporation a great deal of money while the competitor who won the bid struggled to keep their heads above water. Bentonvilleās buyers had the reputation of being real jerks and maybe that payed off for them most of the time but not always.
Theyāre using oats now.
Yep, deal with folks like Walmart at your own peril. Reminds me of that old chicken farmer joke though. Two guys were raising chickens for profit and the year ended with a loss of $1 per chicken on 10,000 chickens. Talking about what to do about next year, they came up with the idea to raise 20,000 chickens the next year.
Many years ago, in a town far away from where I now reside, I had a really good mechanic.
He was preparing a Lincoln that was only a few years old, for resale.
He had been āgiftedā with a bottle of Slick 50 by a salesman, and he decided to add it to the oil when he did an oil change on that Lincoln.
Well, within less than 50 miles after adding Slick 50 to the crankcase, the engine on that Lincoln seized.
As he said, āI would never be able to prove that Slick 50 was the cause of that engine seizure, but how else can one explain the catastrophic failure of an engine that had less than 70k miles on it, and that was running really well before adding Slick 50?ā.
Reminds me of the joke about the guy who spent $3,000 renovating his boat. On his next trip, he and his buddies caught 3 fish. The guy said, āThose fish cost $1,000 each.ā and one of his buddies said, āItās a good thing we didnāt catch more.ā
Teflon is still in Slick-50. Then you have to ask WHY if itās there donāt they advertise it. If you read the ingredients youāll see PTFE.
Teflon is the trademark name for PTFE and is owned by Dupont. Years ago when Slick-50 was making these outrageous claims what Teflon didā¦Dupont decided to do their own testing. After some testing they told Slick-50 to remove the name Teflon from their product because they didnāt want to be associated with this snake-oil product. Dupont doesnāt mind you using the name Teflon on your product as long as it does what it says it does. Dupont was very suspicious because Slick-50 was claiming that the Teflon was coating the moving parts and making them slicker. Dupont took YEARS to get Teflon to stick to metal. It has to be baked on. Just pouring it into an engine wonāt cut it.
People have been scammed by Slick-50 for decades. You think because you have 286k miles it was because of Slick-50. The last previous 4 vehicles weāve owned all went over 300k miles with just normal recommended oil changes. 2 of those vehicles went over 400k miles and one near 500k miles. So if Slick-50 is so good then I should have gotten over 1 million on those engines?
Another thing to consider is that Teflon has fallen out of favor for use on nonstick pans. The stuff is poisonous, but unless you abuse or overheat your Teflon pans, you donāt get exposed to it. Nonetheless, that doesnāt stop people from recoiling from Teflon out of fear, so even if DuPont didnāt mind Slick 50 advertising that itās in there, it wouldnāt be much help to Slick 50.
I doubt Slick 50 pushed that Lincoln engine over the edge but it was probably ready to let go. I have come across some neglected lawnmowers for free or close to it. The first thing I do is change the oil which comes out looking like tar. They either hold together for the long term or fly apart within 5 minutes once I put fresh oil in them. There doesnāt seem to be much of a gray area. I feel that the thick sludge oil cushions worn clearances better than fresh oil. Either way these old dogs werenāt going to hold together long even if changing the oil hastens their demise. I talked to a mower mechanic about this once and he said he has seen the same thing many times. People complain to him how him changing the oil ruined their mowers.