This is the problem. Europeans have long told me that North American HM oils are a gimmick. I would argue that wasn't true in the past, but, unfortunately, I now must agree with them in all but a very few cases.
At one time, we used to have the regular conventional oils, synthetic blends, then the synthetics, all tending to meet whatever specification was current at the time. Then, HM oils started appearing, with Valvoline starting things out, or, at the very least, popularizing it. We ended up with some blends that had seal conditioners, extra HTHS, and extra anti-wear compounds, not married to the latest specification.
Some time after that, the "regular" synthetic blends started to disappear. While many seemed to have remained in existence on paper, they certainly disappeared from the shelves. Now, we have a trend where high mileage oils are disappearing as oil bottle contents, while the labelling as high mileage oils remains and modern specifications are inexplicably adopted. Regardless of what anyone says, the claim that an oil certified SN/GF-5 dexos1 is a high mileage oil (I'm looking squarely at Valvoline here) is dubious at best. Imperial Oil in Canada did that same stupidity with Mobil Super 2000 back in the SM days, with their high mileage oil being SM/GF-4. Not surprisingly, it was as useless as any other 5w-30 SM/GF-4 in slowly leaks on the F-150. Non-certified MaxLife (which no longer exists) and HDEO were the only temporary fixes.
So, Shell switches Defy to ILSAC. You can't swing a dead cat in an oil aisle in North America without striking a bottle of Shell ILSAC stuff. I'm sure their market share will increase sharply, considering that PYB, PP, PUP, Pennzoil Gold, QSGB, QSUD, QSED synblend, Formula Shell, and Formula Shell synthetic, all in SN/GF-5, clearly leave huge gaps in SN/GF-5 availability.
It's easy to say that Defy bumps right up to the upper limits of phosphorus. So what? So does PYB. So does QSAD. And both are significantly cheaper. Mola has mentioned that there are other AW compounds beyond ZDDP, and low phosphorus isn't a bad thing all on its own. Of course, that's quite true. But, ILSAC certification winds up bringing the HTHS way down, and if I want a low HTHS lube SN/GF-5 lube, I can do much cheaper than the "high mileage" oils. As best as I can tell, aside from boutiques, there is maybe only one real high mileage oil left, and that's Pennzoil High Mileage, which is still pretty iffy. It is SN in 30 grades, which means low phosphorus. It isn't ILSAC, but no HTHS is published.
At one time, we used to have the regular conventional oils, synthetic blends, then the synthetics, all tending to meet whatever specification was current at the time. Then, HM oils started appearing, with Valvoline starting things out, or, at the very least, popularizing it. We ended up with some blends that had seal conditioners, extra HTHS, and extra anti-wear compounds, not married to the latest specification.
Some time after that, the "regular" synthetic blends started to disappear. While many seemed to have remained in existence on paper, they certainly disappeared from the shelves. Now, we have a trend where high mileage oils are disappearing as oil bottle contents, while the labelling as high mileage oils remains and modern specifications are inexplicably adopted. Regardless of what anyone says, the claim that an oil certified SN/GF-5 dexos1 is a high mileage oil (I'm looking squarely at Valvoline here) is dubious at best. Imperial Oil in Canada did that same stupidity with Mobil Super 2000 back in the SM days, with their high mileage oil being SM/GF-4. Not surprisingly, it was as useless as any other 5w-30 SM/GF-4 in slowly leaks on the F-150. Non-certified MaxLife (which no longer exists) and HDEO were the only temporary fixes.
So, Shell switches Defy to ILSAC. You can't swing a dead cat in an oil aisle in North America without striking a bottle of Shell ILSAC stuff. I'm sure their market share will increase sharply, considering that PYB, PP, PUP, Pennzoil Gold, QSGB, QSUD, QSED synblend, Formula Shell, and Formula Shell synthetic, all in SN/GF-5, clearly leave huge gaps in SN/GF-5 availability.
It's easy to say that Defy bumps right up to the upper limits of phosphorus. So what? So does PYB. So does QSAD. And both are significantly cheaper. Mola has mentioned that there are other AW compounds beyond ZDDP, and low phosphorus isn't a bad thing all on its own. Of course, that's quite true. But, ILSAC certification winds up bringing the HTHS way down, and if I want a low HTHS lube SN/GF-5 lube, I can do much cheaper than the "high mileage" oils. As best as I can tell, aside from boutiques, there is maybe only one real high mileage oil left, and that's Pennzoil High Mileage, which is still pretty iffy. It is SN in 30 grades, which means low phosphorus. It isn't ILSAC, but no HTHS is published.