It seems to me that there was some bad publicity about Quaker State oil in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I had a colleague that had a Dodge Intrepid which was purchased new about that time and the car suffered an early engine failure. The dealer blamed the problem on Quaker State oil.
Thank you for (perhaps unwittingly) making my point for me
" . . . bad publicity about Quaker State oil in the late 1980s and early 1990s."
Exactly my point
That was 20 years ago . . . literally decades ago
@Whitey: I donât know about Royal Purple, having never wanted to shell out for it, but Amsoil is good stuff and can be had near me for $6/qt., sometimes less on sale. My car doesnât use a drop of oil with Amsoil in it, unlike Mobil-1, where it uses a quart between changes, and Valvoline Synpower, where it uses about ½ quart. The oil pressure is more consistent tooâthe same when I change it as with fresh oil. Itâs subjective, but my car seems to love the stuff. I typically go 5-6K between oil changes with full synthetic, which for me is about 2-3 oil changes per year.
Personally, Iâve never seen any certified, branded motor oil cause problems; even Quaker State which at one time I used regularly for years before switching to Wal Mart branded motor oil.
Most engine problems are due to running out of or very low on oil, overheating, failure to change the oil often enough based on a number of factors, or a combination of all of those.
Unfortunately, a lot of car owners donât see it that way.
Where I live, Royal Purple is well over $9/qt, pretty much the same as Mobil 1
And almost nobody stocks amsoil
Royal Purple versus Amsoil . . . I would be more tempted to try amsoil
When I was a kid, I always thought that when I owned a car, I would use Cities Service (now Citgo) oil in the car. Cities Service sponsored the âBand of Americaâ that was on one of the radio networks (I think it was NBC) from 1948 to 1956. I had to go to bed when the band came on at 9:30 Monday evenings, but I could listen to the program. I had a friend who insisted that everyone should use Phillips 66 Tropartic motor oil. His reasoningâPhillips petroleum sponsored the television show âI Led 3 Livesâ --the story of Herbert A. Philbrick who infiltrated the Communist party for the FBI and by using Phillips 66 products, one was helping to fight Communism. On the other hand, a harness racing fan should use Gulf Single G motor oilâSingle G was a famous harness racing horse. Using this reasoning, a pacifist should use Quaker State.
If you use the proper viscosity oil as specified by the ownerâs manual of the car you drive, you can choose the brand by whatever cause you support.
A quality rebuilder in the Midwest who rebuilt a couple motors over the years told me when we had our motors rebuilt, that his warranty would be voided if we used Pennzoil. He said he had seen too much motor damage when people used Pennzoil.
While this violates the usual wisdom, i didnât care, so I used something else.
This was in the 90âs.
@irlandes: How would he even know if Pennzoil was used unless the owner told him or a receipt/empty bottles were found in the car after an engine failure?
On âbobistheoilguyâ, people that use Pennzoil seem to have as good of oil analysis reports as people that use other oils.
Iâm not knocking Pennzoil, but I will say that after having an oil pan replaced, the shop refilled my crankcase (on a Chevy 350 at the time) with Pennzoil and the engineâs mechanicals seemed a lot louder than I was used to hearing. (this was an engine with about 165K on it at the time) It was noticeable enough that I did ask them what oil theyâd used. I did an early oil change with the Castrol dino oil I was used to using and the engine sounded a lot happier and quieter than it did on the Pennzoil. Same 10w30 weight oil.
The dealer may have blamed Quaker Srate, but the 2.7 V6 in those cars was a known hand grenade, usually failing early even for owners that had proof that they changed their oil every 3000.
All the talk about various brands of oils is pure conjecture, I havenât seen objective tests of motor oils in a long, long time and there were no synthetics involved back then. In that report there were not great differences between the brands, but Pennzoil and Castrol resisted viscosity breakdoe longer than the others but it was noted that Castrol tested at a little higher viscosity than marked.
In all cases it was noted that regular oil changes at reasonable intervals were much more important than brand.
I have used Pennzoil for the first four years of my five year old carâs life. This year I decided to try a more expensive oil, Pure Purple.
This winter using Pure Purple my car experienced strong engine shaking on start up on four occasions. My car never experienced this issue the first four winters using Pennzoil.
And the oil has nothing to do with that.
More accurately, the brand of the oil had nothing to do with that.
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