The price of engine oil
Discussion
Well now the price of oil has halved, I would be expecting the price hikes we saw in engine oil a few years back to be reversed. Engine oil is much more sensitive to the oil price as there is no large fixed "road tax" component per litre.
However I haven't seen the prices budge yet. Which implies that we are all being ripped off still!
Hmmmph.
However I haven't seen the prices budge yet. Which implies that we are all being ripped off still!
Hmmmph.
RCK974X said:
Funny that, same principle applies, it's somehow never "old stock" when the price goes UP .....
Well maybe slight exaggeration - usually there's a few week's grace when the crude oil price goes up - I remember in the '90's when Unipart Green 20W/50 was £4.50 a gallon for years. The oil price shot up in the early 2000's I had a few weeks to stock up 8 gallons to see me through a few years usage...Lets look at it from the suppliers point of view. All year round they struggle to make a profit on a case of oil because of competition and so many different brands of oil on the market. When the price of oil drops at source, would you be quick in passing the diffrence on? I bet not. This is the one time they get to make a bit of decent profit. I guess it's called business. Same applies to most imported commodities. The drop in price is not only due to the drop in material at source, but the difference of the currency on goods bought from around the world. What I'm saying, is that, not passing on of the droping prices is a regular occurance, it's just that the public are unaware.
PS. I am not sure that stocking up on oil is a good idea, as oil gathers moiture over long periods due to condensation and can contaminate. Not what you need in your V8.
Tony.TCB.
PS. I am not sure that stocking up on oil is a good idea, as oil gathers moiture over long periods due to condensation and can contaminate. Not what you need in your V8.
Tony.TCB.
Here is my 5 pence worth....I used to work for AP Lockhead until its demise in the late 80's...Used oil was like gold and big names use to supply very large drums for service garages to fill up for collection on a regular basis, This oil was then collected and cleaned by process of refinement and conditioning and then sold on as a higher grade oil..I should imagine thats where the synthetic oil was born from...After all you can only refine oil so much!..
This practise was also prevalent in the manufacture of Brake shoes & brake pads...Master cylinders...Slave cylinders...Wheel cylinders..Calipers....Clutch plates...And even UJ's...In a way it helped to keep manufacturing costs down so that profit margins were higher...
They way i look at it is this...
Petrol per pint is less than a pint of beer, Oil is about the same....We use petrol and it cannot be recycled as it gets burnt so the demand is higher....Beer gets consumed and cannot be recycled...Although it does if you really think about it although i would rather not...And demand is higher..Oil gets consumed at a much lower rate and can be recycled, The demand is also lower.....
The benefits from "GOOD" oil to an engine are paramount any subsidising or rather compromising does have consequences...Some VERY expensive...
Regular oil changes especially on older cars can have a very positive effect on the longevity of an engine.
There are modern oils now that are a lot better than some of the older oils as technology moves forward, Viscosity is very important but also attributes to how much use the vehicles gets and what stresses are applied upon it...
Zinc (ZDP) in the right quantity is a good inhibitor of wear against rubbing surfaces but degrade fairly quickly so again regular oil changes with a good quality oil are advantageous.....In this day and age i believe you really do get what you pay for...
Whoops...Its now 20 pence worth...Aren't i the extravagant one...
This practise was also prevalent in the manufacture of Brake shoes & brake pads...Master cylinders...Slave cylinders...Wheel cylinders..Calipers....Clutch plates...And even UJ's...In a way it helped to keep manufacturing costs down so that profit margins were higher...
They way i look at it is this...
Petrol per pint is less than a pint of beer, Oil is about the same....We use petrol and it cannot be recycled as it gets burnt so the demand is higher....Beer gets consumed and cannot be recycled...Although it does if you really think about it although i would rather not...And demand is higher..Oil gets consumed at a much lower rate and can be recycled, The demand is also lower.....
The benefits from "GOOD" oil to an engine are paramount any subsidising or rather compromising does have consequences...Some VERY expensive...
Regular oil changes especially on older cars can have a very positive effect on the longevity of an engine.
There are modern oils now that are a lot better than some of the older oils as technology moves forward, Viscosity is very important but also attributes to how much use the vehicles gets and what stresses are applied upon it...
Zinc (ZDP) in the right quantity is a good inhibitor of wear against rubbing surfaces but degrade fairly quickly so again regular oil changes with a good quality oil are advantageous.....In this day and age i believe you really do get what you pay for...
Whoops...Its now 20 pence worth...Aren't i the extravagant one...
mrzigazaga said:
Zinc (ZDP) in the right quantity is a good inhibitor of wear against rubbing surfaces but degrade fairly quickly so again regular oil changes with a good quality oil are advantageous.....In this day and age i believe you really do get what you pay for...
Unfortunately, price is no indicator of high ZDDP content (quite the reverse, probably). I was researching this last night and it seems that Comma Classic 20W/50 has a reasonable ZDDP content (from the product data sheet around 800ppm), as does Castrol Classic 20W/50. However, the high-spec pricey synthetics, with modern API ratings, means for catalysed engines, have much lower ZDDP. (The reason for the reduction being that ZDDP poisons the catalyst a little).
We do need this stuff in the RV8 oil for the camshaft/tappet interface. I wonder if it contributed to Martin's recent lobe wearout? Perhaps he can confirm the oil he used?
I did a back of the envelope calculation and in the UK alone we probably get through half a million gallons of engine oil a year, I can't imagine stocks will be anything like that, so the lower prices should be feeding through already.
So far no-one has made a good case for paying sustained high prices... yes, we are starting to work this out, maybe an email into trading standards to look at a possible cartel is now overdue?
An email would probably fall on deaf ears anyway as most of the oil pre-price drop needs to be shifted before lower prices can be applied...I suspect...And this would probably be their argument..
However in the great scheme of things i guess its a cost of £50 pa which overall isn't a major cost..Actually saying that its probably double that as the topping up throughout the year would probably equate to another gallon anyway...So topping up with the same oil you have in there in the first place is always good...
I guess the total running costs for some are a concern but for me even though its a struggle is part of the up keep of my Wedge and also helps me to continue smiling ...
Mmmm...Just realised I'm due for an oil change soon....Bugger...Halfords special it is then....
However in the great scheme of things i guess its a cost of £50 pa which overall isn't a major cost..Actually saying that its probably double that as the topping up throughout the year would probably equate to another gallon anyway...So topping up with the same oil you have in there in the first place is always good...
I guess the total running costs for some are a concern but for me even though its a struggle is part of the up keep of my Wedge and also helps me to continue smiling ...
Mmmm...Just realised I'm due for an oil change soon....Bugger...Halfords special it is then....
ElvisWedgely said:
For quality, whatever 20w/50 make of oil I may use, I always use STP oil treatment at every oil change. This in my opinin raises the quality and viscosity of the oil, especially in the early engines like the Wedge.
Tony. TCB.
mmmm...Im always wary of "Additives" especially in oil, If you use a good quality oil and at the right viscosity to begin with then they normally contain enough of whatever to cover all bases and additives as far as i remember were used to stop a smokey engine prior to sale...Not saying that yours is the same..Somewhere i have a bottle of oil additive that was designed by NASA to clean and protect your engine...I never realised they were worried about that...Especially as most of the rockets they send up are non-retrievable anyway...Tony. TCB.
I saw an interesting video on "Seafoam" recently..People seem to think that the smoke that comes out the exhaust is all the carbon deposits being cleaned off....Well...A young black dude on youtube has dispelled that myth!...He bought a brand new petrol lawn mower and added Seafoam to a running engine...Smoke streamed out of the exhaust of the new engine which as you know will have NO carbon build up....You are probably better off steam cleaning the internals...If you know what you are doing...Ziga
Oil - It's worth reading about the API classifications in Wiki etc. for stuff like ZDDP content - as Adam said above, wear additives are reduced in newer oil specs, to protect cat convertors, but older engines need them for stuff like tappet heads, and I guess stuff like cam gear drives (2.8 V6).
I use castrol GTX 20-50 Classic in my 2.8, as it's the easiest classic style oil to find here at a reasonable price, but I use semi-synth 10-40 in the more modern engines like our Volvo.
Anyway, 10-40 leaks out from the 2.8 rocker covers and makes a mess !
Prices - Yes, I was being deliberately provocative, but am VERY cynical about prices - I reckon a lot of stuff is sold more on the basis of "what can we get away with" than real costs - think on this little snippet for example....
How is it than New Zealand Anchor butter sells cheaper in UK supermarkets (Morrisons, Tesco) IN ACTUAL REAL TERMS than we can buy it right here where it's made ??? How ?? Especially when you add tansport, handling, etc. Even the bulk buy argument is hard to swallow.
I use castrol GTX 20-50 Classic in my 2.8, as it's the easiest classic style oil to find here at a reasonable price, but I use semi-synth 10-40 in the more modern engines like our Volvo.
Anyway, 10-40 leaks out from the 2.8 rocker covers and makes a mess !
Prices - Yes, I was being deliberately provocative, but am VERY cynical about prices - I reckon a lot of stuff is sold more on the basis of "what can we get away with" than real costs - think on this little snippet for example....
How is it than New Zealand Anchor butter sells cheaper in UK supermarkets (Morrisons, Tesco) IN ACTUAL REAL TERMS than we can buy it right here where it's made ??? How ?? Especially when you add tansport, handling, etc. Even the bulk buy argument is hard to swallow.
Edited by RCK974X on Thursday 8th January 18:39
V8 Fettler said:
5 litres of engine oil is a much smaller % of the total cost of the product than 5 litres of petrol. Packaging, storage, delivery, sales process etc.
Exactly...If you want to point the finger then i would question which is it...1. The actual total price of Oil/Fuel has dropped?.
Or
2. The Government actually lowered the amount of tax that they take from Oil/Fuel?.
I would think its the latter as the tax on fuel's is not far short of "Disgusting" and I'm not just talking for cars...Homes under that hammer too Mr C....
Did you know that magnetic motors exist that can produce 3KW per hour of electricity, They are being utilised to sell energy back to the grid, Even though at a menial rate..They don't want us doing what they do...Only what they say!..."Its illegal to produce non-taxable fuels"
I worked on a perpetual motion device years ago and this legislation put an end to that concept, Why try to develop a method of creating free fuel is you make it forbidden for anyone to have?...Because you can use it for yourself!...That fact was it would of still needed to be lubricated with oil albeit the thinnest concentration known to man...(Nanotronics)..Highly evolved low resistance lubricant...So build cost would be astronomical but there would be no profit = "Free energy" is illegal.
As said fuel costs more to refine to an ignitable structure but the sheer demand out weighs the supply...Oil is sort more in crude form...Although it still has a shelf life...
Buy the best you can buy for your pride and joy and enjoying it...Cos its money well spent....
The point about getting "the same quality oil" but at a more reasonable price is that I can then afford to change it more often.
So if it's half the price I might change it at 2000 miles instead of 3000. I am sure this will have a much more beneficial effect than anything else mentioned above.
It's all about cost/benefit and getting more bang for my buck. This is why I'm on the Wedges forum and not the Fezza forum ;^)
So if it's half the price I might change it at 2000 miles instead of 3000. I am sure this will have a much more beneficial effect than anything else mentioned above.
It's all about cost/benefit and getting more bang for my buck. This is why I'm on the Wedges forum and not the Fezza forum ;^)
Just seen item 181308882991 on the flea - could this be the start of a price shift downwards? This is from the manufacturer, reduced to £80 from a list price of £83 (ignore the £95 price tag, that's been inflated).
For my part I picked up 4 cans of Comma Classic 20W/50 at £15 a can, not a complete bargain but it's reasonable stuff with a fair ZDDP content. Seems to be the best value around at the moment. Buy it online 'cos retail can see you paying up to £25 a gallon can.
For my part I picked up 4 cans of Comma Classic 20W/50 at £15 a can, not a complete bargain but it's reasonable stuff with a fair ZDDP content. Seems to be the best value around at the moment. Buy it online 'cos retail can see you paying up to £25 a gallon can.
NZ price news...
Our petrol price now $1.61 per litre (91 octane) for "a limited time" (which is 83p at current rates).
Meanwhile Repco (NZ/Aus equiv of Halfrauds) have special oil+filter deals advertised as "cheapest ever" at $49.99 (=25.68 quid) for 20-50 and $55 for semi-synth 10-40.
Mobil Super 1000 20-50 'special deal' at $26.99 (=13.86 quid) for 4 litres.
Is the Mobil any good ??
From wiki I guess we can also say to all Wedgers that we should always buy oil which is API 'SM' spec or EARLIER whereas most workshop manuals say API xx or later....
Our petrol price now $1.61 per litre (91 octane) for "a limited time" (which is 83p at current rates).
Meanwhile Repco (NZ/Aus equiv of Halfrauds) have special oil+filter deals advertised as "cheapest ever" at $49.99 (=25.68 quid) for 20-50 and $55 for semi-synth 10-40.
Mobil Super 1000 20-50 'special deal' at $26.99 (=13.86 quid) for 4 litres.
Is the Mobil any good ??
From wiki I guess we can also say to all Wedgers that we should always buy oil which is API 'SM' spec or EARLIER whereas most workshop manuals say API xx or later....
Edited by RCK974X on Saturday 17th January 20:04
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