oil prices?
oil prices?
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Discussion

AlVal

Original Poster:

1,891 posts

294 months

Sunday 15th July 2007
quotequote all
Am i nuts or is the price of synthetic oil really high at the moment? is there something crazy happening in the oil market? any grade like 15/50 or 10/60 of proper ester synthetic is over £10 per litre! im sure it was only a fraction of this a year or two ago, no?

Tvr_Edd

413 posts

249 months

Sunday 15th July 2007
quotequote all
surely you've noticed petrol prices going up and up...

ajcj

798 posts

235 months

Sunday 15th July 2007
quotequote all
Crude oil prices are a large part of the price increases, but so are the costs of the additives that do all the tricky stuff - anti-wear, anti-foam, viscosity modifiers, and so on. There's a supply and demand problem for the refiners, which is that the ever-increasing demand for diesel fuel in Europe eats in to the available capacity for lubricant base oil, and so to make it tempting for them to produce some, you have to pay more.... There were actually shortages of several important components for motor oil blending this time last year, and some steep price increases as a result.

Just economics, but the end user is the one who will eventually have to foot the bill.curse

AlVal

Original Poster:

1,891 posts

294 months

Sunday 15th July 2007
quotequote all
thanks for the info, interesting to know!

i thought there must be huge margins for the retailers at first, but then I notice you dont even get much discount buying in bulk 205 litre drums, which to me indicatesa pretty cutthroat market



Edited by AlVal on Sunday 15th July 18:10

AlVal

Original Poster:

1,891 posts

294 months

Sunday 15th July 2007
quotequote all
just been offered a very good deal on mobil 1 fully synth 5w30 , not the grade I would have chosen, wondering how well this oil will perform at the high temps the ajp tends to run at?

£4.79 per litre, packed in individual litre cartons and thats a delivered price assuming 24 minimum order, is hard to turn down, if the cerb will be happy with it. Im looking at nearly twice that to get the 15w50 or thereabouts id prefer.

thoughts on the suitability of 0w30 for a 50000 mile 4.2 ajp?

FUBAR

17,065 posts

268 months

Gazzab

21,650 posts

312 months

Sunday 15th July 2007
quotequote all
loads of oil at less than £5 a litre on Ebay.

ajcj

798 posts

235 months

Sunday 15th July 2007
quotequote all
The move to lower viscosities, specifically 0- and 5-w30 grades was primarily on account of the bigger manufacturers (BMW and VW/Audi, etc) for engine efficiency reasons, and the engines were designed to work with them. You can only get those vicosities with fully synthetic base oils, which are more expensive.

The trouble with using these thinner oils in older, less precisely engineered engines is firstly that it might leak through the holes and onto your drive, but more importantly that you will burn more of it. You'll burn less fuel (or have more power) as well, but only a couple of percentage points. I'd be more worried about the possibility of fuel thinning the oil further under engine load, its ability to disperse heat effectively in the critical areas, and that the mechanical protection of a thinner oil is less good, although the anti-wear chemistry is probably better as it will be a more recent formulation.

I use a semi-synthetic 10w40 in my Speed 6 Cerb (Castrol Magnatec, which has some useful properties to protect at start-up), but probably could do with going a bit thicker, as I burn half a litre every few hundred miles..... scratchchin Ideally the Castrol Edge 10w60, even though I would lose a couple of bhp! I don't think I would go near a 0-w30. If you know anyone who goes abroad, these oils can be cheaper elsewhere - France especially.

Forgot to say that if you have an older engine, a thinner oil with good cleaning properties could actually clean away the deposits that are holding the engine together and create leaks!

Edited by ajcj on Sunday 15th July 22:45

AlVal

Original Poster:

1,891 posts

294 months

Sunday 15th July 2007
quotequote all
Gazzab said:
loads of oil at less than £5 a litre on Ebay.
yes, but loads of oil properly suitable for the cerb 4.2? doesnt seem so!

AlVal

Original Poster:

1,891 posts

294 months

Sunday 15th July 2007
quotequote all
ajcj said:
The move to lower viscosities, specifically 0- and 5-w30 grades was primarily on account of the bigger manufacturers (BMW and VW/Audi, etc) for engine efficiency reasons, and the engines were designed to work with them. You can only get those vicosities with fully synthetic base oils, which are more expensive.

The trouble with using these thinner oils in older, less precisely engineered engines is firstly that it might leak through the holes and onto your drive, but more importantly that you will burn more of it. You'll burn less fuel (or have more power) as well, but only a couple of percentage points. I'd be more worried about the possibility of fuel thinning the oil further under engine load, its ability to disperse heat effectively in the critical areas, and that the mechanical protection of a thinner oil is less good, although the anti-wear chemistry is probably better as it will be a more recent formulation.

I use a semi-synthetic 10w40 in my Speed 6 Cerb (Castrol Magnatec, which has some useful properties to protect at start-up), but probably could do with going a bit thicker, as I burn half a litre every few hundred miles..... scratchchin Ideally the Castrol Edge 10w60, even though I would lose a couple of bhp! I don't think I would go near a 0-w30. If you know anyone who goes abroad, these oils can be cheaper elsewhere - France especially.

Forgot to say that if you have an older engine, a thinner oil with good cleaning properties could actually clean away the deposits that are holding the engine together and create leaks!

Edited by ajcj on Sunday 15th July 22:45
thanks for the input, ive just gone and ordered the silkolene r 15w50 (ill only be using the car summertime) and all the other fluids etc the car will need for its 12k service, id rather purchase the fluids myself, and know exactly whats in there, and just pay for the labour etc.

this time around ive decided to just getting the best spec stuff i can find for brake/clutch, coolant, engine oil, gearbox oil, and diff oil, so that whatevers left wrong with the car, at least i wont have the naggling feeling that it might be a fluid!