My buddy uses 5w30 Walmart oil and pays .99 per qt I use Castrol 5w30 and pay 1.59 per qt Why is there so much price diff? He says im wasting my $$$ because there is no diff does anybody have any real hard facts to support this ? I tell him im not going to skimp on a 30k truck and he says as long as its aise cert or whatever it will be fine,chg every 3K

 

IMO your both right... There are some differences in the composition of different brands of oil no different then there is with gasoline with different companies useing different additives. However I belive most oils are all processed through the same (or similair) refineries. Some oils perform better then others in different tests, so there are some minor differences. At the same time, as long as you use API certified oil, and change every 3k, you should be in good shape.

 

I wouldn't use that old recycled wally world oil in YOUR lawn moweror on YOUR kids bike chain, much less in MY truck.!

 

While your at Walmart be sure to get a motorcraft oil filter too.

I use the 10-30 Chevron Supreme in my rig.

 

Used WalMart supertech oil in my 1989 mustang 5.0 the entire time I owned it. I bought it new in 1989 and sold it in 2001 with 145,000+ miles on it. Didn't burn any oil and ran great. Super Clean! Changed oil every 3,000 miles with no problems, and threw in a bottle of super tech fuel injector cleaner every other oil change.

It's funny to me to see all the posts where people bad mouth other types of oil. Just shows there lack of intelligence on the subject to me. As long as you change the oil every 3,000 or so miles you will be okay with any brand.

-Brian

 

Here is a page that has some comparisons of diferent oils and some good reading. http://www.atis.net/oil_faq.html

 

If you are changing the oil every 3,000 miles and are using an API certified oil, then there should be no issues.

That being said, there are major differences in oils by brand. They have different base oils and different additive packages. Many are much stronger than others, and provide additional levels of protection that may or may not ever be needed. The API certification basically means it meets the minimum specs, and probably not much more.

If you are really curious how the oil is doing, you can start doing oil analysis and see whats happening. A great source for everthing you ever wanted to know about oil and then some is:

www.bobistheoilguy.com

Check out the forums!

 

I guess it's all a matter of what makes you happy. The way I see it is, walmart doesn't make the oil. It is made by probably one of the larger oil company's and sold as a generic brand to walmart. The auto center manager at my local walmart swears it is quaker state so who knows. Some people seem convinced that the walmart lube center drains joe smoe's oil, runs it through a cooking strainer and bottles it up for sale. Interesting enough a lot of these same people would rather run an $8 a quart oil for 20,000 miles between oil changes because an oil analysis say's it's ok. I personally wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I did that. I can tell you personally i ran the super tech in my 95 grandcherokee from about 90k-140k changing it every 3,000 and it was fine. I run Valvoline Durablend 5-30 in my truck. Is it signifigantly better than a lot of the other stuff or the super tech for that matter? Probably not, but it still only cost me $14 every 3,000 miles and like I said at the beginning, it makes me happy

 

Wal-Marts oil is manufactured at a plant that was (and perhaps still is) partially owned by quaker state. They are NOT the same oil though. A look at the spec sheets shows that. Last I heard, the plant was being sold as part of the merger between penzoil and quaker state.