Been searching high and low for Chevron supreme, nada. Only one place carried it, Wal-Mart but only 20w50. Chevron site says there is a Chevron station close to me, that is now a Phillips 66. Chevron is the same company as Texaco. I am told the gas is the same, just certain parts of the US, it's called Chevron, other places, it's named Texaco. So again, is Havoline and Chevron the same oil????

Any ideas on a GOOD dino oil for a truck that idles and makes slow short trips all day? Thanks..

 

Been using the Ford 5W-20 since I bought the 'Screw in 01. I have used Valvoline as well, but I have to admit that the purchases are based on availability, not real analysis data.

No problems, but I guess I'm weird because I do not know a single person who has had an oil-related engine failure if they were conscientious about doing oil and filter changes regularly.

(Even those who used "cheap" oil from the auto parts stores).

Another testament to the irrelevance of oil selection (other than to the vehicle owner) is the fact that probably every brand of oil sold in North America is represented here by some folks who swear by it and would run nothing else.

Not saying some aren't better than others; rather I think that in the applications that most folks use their trucks, the brand of oil is not a significant factor in the life of the engine.

Just my $.02...

 

There you go, a good quality oil lacking in marketing and look at the results.

I would say Castrol GTX. If you are interested in ordering it I would say Schaffers, but I have never ordered any.

 

just curious, who actually manufactures Motorcraft oil? I understand Motorcraft oil filters are made by purolator, not bad. I assume their oil is fairly good.

I have known a few people that have had oil related problems. Mostly due to sludge build up clogging passages. These were with people that changed their oil between 3 and 5 thousand miles always. I don't want to slander any particular companies but there were two oils that were involved in these (4) incidents that I am aware of. One is a yellow bottle with a bell on it, the other is green, just think of oatmeal. Maybe I won't be sued if I don't use names

When the brands were switched to others, the people drove the same, changed the same intervals and the engines lasted much longer. Coincidence?

 

A, this is the prefect question to place on bobistheoilguy.com. These oil specialists sit around and talk about the best oil for this and that application all day long.

You have a very specialized oil application.

 

I second the bobistheoilguy.com recommendation! Post on there, like many of us do, and a lot of your questions wil be answered. The only reason I run an $8. per quart oil is because I want to sleep at night.

 

No need really. I finally found a site that has posred data from most all oils tested. Broken down into VI, flashpoint, pour, zinc and ash percentages etc. Chevron Supreme is one of the highest conventional oils. It was however bettered by Unocal and Shell in the 10w30 weight. I shouldn't necessarily say bettered, Unocal had the higest flashpoint, Chevron being second. Shell having the highest VI, Chevron being second. Flashpoints were only like 5degrees difference. I can't find Chevron, I have never seen Unocal but you can't spit here without hitting a Shell station, or bumping into it on any store shelf in town. Looks like I will be trying that.

Thanks for the input. At least it led me on a search of data and I found it. Thanks again.

 

A, sorry to hear that, I was looking forward to reading their comments to your questions. You have an interesting oil application. Glad to hear you found what you were looking for though.

 

Well, on second thought. I cut this from a web site:
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Fortunately, after two decades of multi-vis mania, it now appears that more and more are starting to recognize the shortcomings of multi-vis oil and are switching back to single-weight. An increasing number of top-rated overhaul shops are now recommending the use of single-weight oil.

It turns out that multi-vis oil is not a better lubricant than single-grade oil. It's actually a bit worse. The reason is that multi-vis oil is made by starting with a thin, single-weight oil stock and adding man-made polymers called "Viscosity Index improvers" that increase viscosity as temperature increases. However, such VI improvers are not lubricants, and their addition actually displaces a certain amount of lubricating base stock (on the order of 10%). In other words, there's more "oil" in a quart of single-weight oil than in a quart of multi-vis.
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I think maybe I will post to that site and see what I am told. Thanks.

 

I'm not sure what people mean by you having a specialized oil application but I've been doing some research on dino oils for my new B4000 and my wife's new MPV and chevron supreme and castrol gtx keep coming up. Like others said, check out www.bobistheoilguy.com forums for real world oil analysis that others have performed on all sorts of oils. I don't think anyone answered your question regarding chevron and havoline being the same and I don't think they are. If you read the make on the havoline bottle it will tell you who's oil it is. Around here they almost always say equilon. If you read the chevron/texaco sites you'll see that some company equilon has the right to market under the texaco name. My brother bought some havoline oils recently and found that 4 out of 6 were equilon and the other 2 were the other oil provider, quite possibly chevron. He said that they were different colors even though they were the same weight oils. Best bet would be get an oil that you know who the manufacturer is. From my research I think I'm going with castrol gtx 5w30 in my B4000 and ford 5w20 semi-syn in my wife's MPV. Strange but the Ford 4.0l still call for 5w30 while most other ford engines call for the 5w20.

 

I think Equilon is owned by Shell. Very confusing these days with these mergers and take overs. In my searches this weekend, I have found, for example, Phillips 66 owns Conoco, Union76, Kendall motor oil and a few others. That Mobil does not make Gasoline, at a Mobil station, the gasoline is just "marketed" under the Mobil name. It is actually Phillips that "makes" the gas and supplied to the Mobil marketers.

Anyway, you understood my question. With there only really being like 3-4 oil "companies" left, marketing under different names, you don't know if Phillips Trop-Arctic, is actually the same as Kendall GT1 etc.

My boss used to own gas stations on the easten seaboard. (Carolinas.) He told me that there really is only like 2-3 gasoline refiners (makers) and that each marketing brand adds their own additives at the tanker to make it their own "brand." He laughs at me when I tell him I don't like a certain brand of gas, that it makes my car or truck knock. He say's it all most likely came from the same vat.

So naturally you wonder if it isn't the same with oil. A couple of refiners, all the same stuff, then additives added to make it that "superior-special" brand. One of those, hmmmmmm things.

 

Chevron Supreme and Havoline are different oils. Chevron Synthetic and Havoline Synthetic are the same. Equilon is different yet and most likely will be phased out.

Citgo, a Venezuela company, is now the owner of all the Phillips 66 conglomerate. If you can find Phillips 66 Turbo 10w-30, it's a another good dino but is hard to find.

Motorcraft oil is made by Shell and is known in the Shell bottle as Hydroclear.

Concerning VII's, some are lubricants and some aren't. The better grades of oils use VII's that have lubricating qualities. Some folks are still trying to use a college study of multi's versus single weight oils to support their position. Problem is, the study has as much scientific value as as wiping your nose with a newspaper and claim it works wonders. Five different oils in five different engines- sorry, that kind of science we don't need.

Concerning gasoline, all the major brands and the corner marts buy from the local terminal and the additive package is mixed into the truck while filling. In my area, there is only Exxon and Coastal. Mobil, Texaco, Chevron, Shell, Conoco, all of the stations buy from the same terminal tanks. Also, check where you normally fill up for the color of the stations tank tops. If they only have 2 colors, they are blending super and regular unleaded to get their plus grade gas. The colors will be red, white, and blue if they carry all 3 octanes.

And lastly, NASCAR does not use M1 5w-30. I highly doubt that M1 would last the first 100 miles of an engine turning 7-9,000 rpm's. They don't use a sump/pump system like your car/ truck. They have an enclosed oil system. Depending on the track, some use a 20w oil high in boron and moly. Some have won with this combo and some didn't finish. But they claim a few more ponies and additional fuel mileage and it's worth the gamble. Other times they will run a 30 wt and some have even run a 40w. Most of it is custom blended as per engine manufacturers spec-and most of the time, they even follow the recommendations, well, most of the time.

 

Just repeating what I read. I didn't know that about Citgo / Phillips. I had read where Phillips and the parent company of Citgo, were partners in oil wells in Venzuela, where the Citgo parent is based.

Regarding the Nascar and others using Mobil1, I actually read that on a couple of sites. Wouldn't particularly matter to me either way. I don't drive a 600+ hp, car that is torn down every 500 miles or so. If they did, or didn't use it would not impress me at all. They were using dino oil long before synthetics were out. Now, if they ran the same engines weekly, no tear downs allowed, then the brand of oil they used may matter to me.

Non the less, I can't find many that think single weight is a very good idea. I haven't cooked my engine up to this point, I suppose one oil is about as good as the next, from what I gather. If one person has a failure with the yellow bottled glop, you will find another person that swears that's all they have ever used and it has taken them 300k trouble free miles.

I am getting the distinct impression, that like gasoline, oil, is oil. As long as it says SJ on it, it is fine. Whoever adds what to it at their processing plant, makes little difference. All pretty much use the same formulas.

In short, I guess it is nothing for me to obsess over. Chevron Supreme, Castrol GTX, Havoline, Pennzoil et al, if someone put it in for me and I never saw it, I would never know the difference. As long as it isn't cold outside, 10w30, 5w30, 0w30, straight 30wt, I would never be able to tell. I think the best thing for me to do is just walk into the local store and buy whatever is on sale, or throw a dart.

 

Where to start through all the BS...

Motorcraft oil is manufactured by Conoco. Hydroclear is trademarked term from Conoco. If you search the MSDS sheets at Conoco, you will find all of the Motorcraft fluids there.

Citgo does not own Phillips 66. Phillips petroleum and Conoco merged in 2002, and the company is now called ConocoPhillips. Major brands marleted under this umbrella are Conoco, Phillips 66, Kendall, and Unocal 76. Phillips 66 is a partner in Oilfield production in Venezuala with the parent company of Citgo.

For now anyways, the different oils under the ConocoPhillips umbrella are different. Product Data sheets show it, and so do analysis results. One wonders how long that will be the case.

Texaco Havoline (when produced by ChevronTexaco) and Chevron Supreme Dino oils MAY be the same product today, though no one is sure. On the data sheets for the two products, there is only one difference in the specs for the oil, and even that is close enough to be typo. Tough to say as of today.

Texaco Havoline motor oils may be found from two different producers, though that will end in the near future. In the past, Texaco oils were produced by two different manufacturers, either Texaco itself or Equilon. Equilon was a partnership formed by Texaco with Royal Dutch and Saudi Oil refining who control the Shell brand name. Equilon oils were not as good as the Texaco product was.

Texaco was forced to divest itself of the Texaco brand name for gasoline for the NEAR term only. In order to prevent a monopolistic situation in some markets (mainly out west were Texaco and Chevron were two of the big names), ChevronTexaco was forced to divest itself of uing the Texaco brand for the near future. Shell was given the exclusive rights to the Texaco brand for gasoline sales until early 2004, then shares the rights through 2005, and then ChevronTexaco has sole rights after 2006 to the Texaco brand for gasoline. So, what you are seeing is the conversion of existing Texaco stations to Shell stations so they stay in the Shell family after Texaco gains the rights to market Texaco gasoline again.

As far as Texaco motor oil goes, Shell had the rights to sell Texaco motor oil until the middle of this year roughly. After that, ChevronTexaco has the sole rights to the Texaco brand. That is why eventually no Texaco oils will be marketed by Equilon, which is now a Shell venture. Seem confusing? It is.

Formula Shell motor oils are now esentially the Equilon product. It has been shown that depending on the location, Shell motor oils DO vary across the country depending on where they were manufactured.

As another note, Shell now owns Penzoil-Quaker State too.

As far as gasoline goes, your odds of getting a gasoline marketed under a brand being refined by that brand are very slim. Gasoline is a fungible product, meaning that so long as it meets minimum standards, its all the same and is hadled as such. For example, we have three refineries in the near vicintiy and they ALL tap into the same distribution pipelines and distrobution facilites. There are some exceptions, but it all depends on your area. For example, here Amoco / BP (which are one comapny these days) is the only brand guranteed to come from a particular refinery, since they maintain (or did anyways, until it was spun off as part of the merger) their own distribution (pipelines, etc) network. Odds are that many "brands" in your area are simply differentiated by an additive added at the rack before delivery to the retailer. Its all a big guessing game!

What oils would I recommend? Chevron Supreme (as discussed), Castrol GTX or Motorcraft. All have shown well in analysis.

 

Well, A.Guy...for what it's worth...I've been using Valvoline oil for many years, and have never had an oil-related engine problem.

Saying that, I'm sure that somebody reading this will find something wrong with Valvoline, or that its made in Yugoslavia under an assumed name and distributed by Gypsies, but it doesn't bother me. I'll continue to use it because it seems to have performed well for me in 4, 6 and 8 cylinder engines, and under various driving condidions.