Castrol Start Up 10/30
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This stuff is heavily promoted with floor billboards and promotional displays here in NJ. I'm wondering if the massive marketing support will be enough to keep it moving off the store shelves. IMHO, it is a good marketing gimmick, but not in the same league as Valvolines high mileage oil campaign a few years back. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this stuff will disappear from the store shelves in 2 years.
MolaKule
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Righteous, Dude - Exactly!
I waiting for it to flop at AutoZone. When they discount it to a $1 a quart I will pick some up to try! In my neck of the woods it is moveing like a 90 old lady with two broken hips!! In spite of the marketing this stuff is just sitting on the shelfs!!
I'm with you. Oil marketers keep trying to make up new distinctions of usage. I believe Quaker State was the first with their "4x4" oils. Then Valvoline hit on the older engine idea with High Mileage. Now we have any number of "SUV/Truck/Van" oils and "High Mileage" oils. What these have in common marketing wise is that they target a sub-segment of the oil buying population to market to (never mind how valid the segmentation is
With "Start Up" Castrol is trying to go after an all-vehicles segment. What vehicle *doesn't* get started?
Craziness!
John
Start up and esters perhaps reduces engine wear by the chemical bond formed with the engine surfaces forming a tough film which stays in place while the engine is shut down, reducing wear during the vital few seconds at start-up - this means that your engine and transmission are protected against wear at all times.
Hey Dropitby, was this oil GF-4/SM rated? On Castrol's website, it indicates that StartUp is GF4/SM rated, but the level of ZDDP in this sample seems higher than is allowed for GF4. Thanks!
[ October 28, 2004, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: Drew99GT ]
[ October 28, 2004, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: Drew99GT ]
I actually predicted this product a while back on s2ki.com!
Castrol is a very cynical player in North America if you ask me. First, they denigrated the meaning of synoil by removing the di-basic ester that was in the original Syntec, and beating Texaco down in the lawsuit questioning whether a GIII-based product was a true synoil. What did that do? Right, it lowered the playing field for the other companies to follow suit, while the price stayed high, and profitability soared. I can get a quality GIII basestock in a Motorcraft minoil, for cryin out loud!
Castrol saves the best products for Europe. I have been told that they cannot market GIII's in Europe as synoil at all.
I can take 4 or 5 quarts of Motorcraft or Havoline and add a bottle of Red Line - Boom, instant Start-up. If I pay $5 for the Havoline, and $7 for the Red Line, that's $12 for 5 quarts. Startup is the same or higher, with an unknown amount of an unknown ester. Hmmmm.......
Castrol is a very cynical player in North America if you ask me. First, they denigrated the meaning of synoil by removing the di-basic ester that was in the original Syntec, and beating Texaco down in the lawsuit questioning whether a GIII-based product was a true synoil. What did that do? Right, it lowered the playing field for the other companies to follow suit, while the price stayed high, and profitability soared. I can get a quality GIII basestock in a Motorcraft minoil, for cryin out loud!
Castrol saves the best products for Europe. I have been told that they cannot market GIII's in Europe as synoil at all.
I can take 4 or 5 quarts of Motorcraft or Havoline and add a bottle of Red Line - Boom, instant Start-up. If I pay $5 for the Havoline, and $7 for the Red Line, that's $12 for 5 quarts. Startup is the same or higher, with an unknown amount of an unknown ester. Hmmmm.......
If you guys want a Synthetic blend.
Don't worry with a pretender.
Go for the best.
Get a buying group together and place a $250 order with the Schaeffer's Rep.
The Schaeffer's will cost you about $3.00/quart and shipping will be free. Plus you can mix and match in case lots. 5w-30, 10w-30 15w-40, gear oil, ATF,Penatrol 90, grease, Neutra, Citrol ....
Don't worry with a pretender.
Go for the best.
Get a buying group together and place a $250 order with the Schaeffer's Rep.
The Schaeffer's will cost you about $3.00/quart and shipping will be free. Plus you can mix and match in case lots. 5w-30, 10w-30 15w-40, gear oil, ATF,Penatrol 90, grease, Neutra, Citrol ....
Great Idea, IMHO!
The 10w-30 has 11.0 cst@100C. PERFECT - not too thin and not too thick.
thank you jorton for resurrecting this thread. seems many of predictions above came true. I just bought some of the 10W-40 (vis at 100'C = 15.9!) at WalMart for $1.50/qt in the "clearance section." But my Kia 3.5L seems to love it.
Amazing "facts" presented by "Road Rage". (Thanks for sharing!
WalMart in West Boylston, MA, had 5w-30 on clearance for $1.30 a quart I believe, last time I was there a couple weeks ago. I only bought 5 quarts, enough for one OC, just to see what a UOA looked like for my vehicle with it.
Excuse me for living - oh for 2 - what other great crime have I committed. Jeessh.quote:
Originally posted by Ray H:
Amazing "facts" presented by "Road Rage". (Thanks for sharing!You're zero for two.) There was NO lawsuit - the issue was handled through binding arbitration by the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau. The arbitration involved contesting by ExxonMobil, NOT Texaco, over the definition of the word, "synthetic". Castrol's position, that Group III base oils' reliance on hydro-isomerization to yield uniform paraffins constitutes a legitimate definition of the term, "synthesis", prevailed. ExxonMobil, which, by the way is the largest single domestic player in the production of Group III base oils, and, coincidentally licenses the technology (for very lucrative fee income) to competitors, "lost" (and, who, along with its shareholders, has been crying all the way to the bank ever since). Oh, and Texaco? Rumor has it the company's oil blending and marketing division (Texaco Havoline) was swallowed whole by Chevron.
Sorry for getting my oil companies wrong, but your outrage and quoting out of context are as suspect as your cynicism and rude tone. Are you saying there never was a lawsuit?
While you are hinting at all sorts of evil motives by E-M, you cleverly avoid the other "facts" - that Castrol undercut the market in price, and the other companies had to go to cheaper GIII basestocks to remain competitive. Did any of us benefit from that? - perhaps in the long run as the reformulated products improved, but certainly not in the short term. And that lowered price by Castrol, and all the others, was short-lived - we now pay GIV prices for GIII products - that is why the smart money may be on products like Havoline (part of Tex/Chev, or did I get that wrong too?)and Motorcraft (Conoco-Phillips).
And are you saying I was wrong that NA Syntec did not once include di-basic esters in its base stocks?
Look, correcting the big issue of which majhr company went after Castrol, and why, and how it ended up being adjudicated, is stuff for attorneys - which I am not. I am just a mech engineer and EE.
There is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to the practices of Big Oil, but I do not think I unfairly characterized this issue with Castrol, in spite of your vitriolic outburst. I have no trouble with being corrected and will note the same in any future refs to this cse (arbitration, negotiation, People's Court, whatever), but you threw out the baby with the bathwater, counselor.
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