Originally Posted By: Cooper
That statement is based solely on the PQI America VOA of the 5w30 versions.....
Ok thanks. I would be careful drawing any conclusions based on PQI chart simply because they are for a different grade. There can be noticeable variances in the add packs between 0/5w-20/30 weights. 0w-20s especially tend to vary from the 5w-30 weights quite a bit.
For what it's worth, I tried to get the latest PDS from Ashland for Napa and after some back and forth, got the one that's listed in that linked post. The Napa seems to be a decent oil pretty close to VSP, especially for the price. Actually, chances are that the 0w-20 weight might be the exact same formulation because the PDS date on the Napa oil is very old and VSP has been revised since then.
Originally Posted By: dparm
I wouldn't compare the oils based on the MSDS.
I agree....the MSDS reference was restricted to "base" oils only, not the final formulation.
The final formulations, compared based on PDS of the two, are not the exact same, but they are much closer than they are apart. So I am thinking the add pack is probably slightly different between the two.
For speculation - Economies of scale suggest that the most room for squeezing more profits is the add pack while it's probably cheaper to procure the same base oil mixes (kinda like how group buys allows some pricing benefits). Blending base oils with additives is where they might be able to "cut corners" and sell it for less to Napa while still maintaining profits.