I predict that in 20 years GM willhave everyone running on EVOO and you might be able to get it with a galic infussion unless they find that garlic kills GM cat's!!!LOL

I hate the all the current alphabet soup of different gear lubes and oils and fluids and coolants etc......It is absolutely stupid and has been for some time! Just another money maker for them. Hopefully someone will say sorry and not play their game and instead they will just tell everyone that they exceed or meet those requirements but are not paying to get the rights to the name and symbol!!! If a big companies ever stood up and took a stand on htis then it would change the game. The problem is that for a company like ExxonMobile it is chump change to pay for the testing and rights to use the name and symbol on their bottles!So until a large company tells these OEM's to take a hike it will just keep going on and the cost will keep being added to the product.

I am already never going to buy a GM or Chrysler product ever again so this just adds more fuel to the fire!

I believe GEOS is modeled after Mobil 1.

They probably developed it for them ..or produce it for them.

What's the difference

Well said Jim.

Since GM is now Gov Motors I'm not surprised they are looking for "an inventive source of new revenue."

I'm letting my GM points expire rather than buy a new GM vehicle.

I'm now a Ford guy.

Smart man

CARS was funny. The local Honda, Toyota, Kia... dealer lots look abandoned. Sold out inventory. The GM dealer was running out of room brimming with new cars on the lot. It was a sad eye-opener.

I think that it stinks.

The Europeans, with their OEM approvals, and warranty requirements was the wrong path.

Your particular engine design has cam wear issues, or sludges ... design that feature out of the oil, or provide the specialist oil for free, rather than recalling the engines.

(The long life BMW/Merc stuff I feel differently about, because the average user could do shorter OCIs on more mainstream products, and the extended OCI could be an API standard without a great deal of worry)

Now GM wants to make its own standard, charge everybody for buying an oil that meets the standard...

They can stick it.

It's not "improving the breed"

I don't believe so Gary.

Well GM's new oil now has a spiffy trademark name- dexos and here are the specifics from the latest lube report.

Details on Dexos

Interesting, thanks for the link.

1. Licensing fees will be high.
2. Some tests are proprietary
3. Use of Group III/PAO to get there.

I wonder if Mobil 1 will remain factory fill for GM? I also wonder how the small guys will claim dexos if some of the tests are proprietary.

Amsoil may have to start forking out more money for approvals. The API fees are not that expensive, so now they will be faced with an even higher licensing cost.

The proprietary testing is going to be very interesting because I bet that the extra testing isn't going to be inexpensive. I personally don't see Amsoil going there yet, but they had better start looking into this standard and figuring out how they can carve out a definitive niche. With GF5 and now Dexos around the corner things will get pretty interesting in the domestic market. I'd also think that Mobil is going to have to get well positioned from a cost perspective to remain factory fill...some others will certainly be gunning for that position.

I am really sick and tired of each car company cooking up its own lubricant (and coolant) specifications. This problem is getting worse, not better as each year goes on.

This is the important point about "dexos":

a royalty of 36 cents on every gallon of dexos they sell

GM is of course noting that dexos oils also meet GF-4, so any independent shop need only stock dexos and they will be covered :). How nice of GM.

From my understanding of the dexos-1 criteria, certain AMSOIL products may already meet or exceed the requirements. This is all about monopolizing the lubricant market for GM dealers. And since they won't get all the oil sales directly, they will require steep testing and royalty costs from anyone else-enough so that many service providers will drop GM oil changes. This amounts to legalized extortion. It would be best if the FTC would require that anyone creating a new spec for themselves have to make the test stand and the sequencing tests available to other blenders at actual cost as well as disallowing royalties. This is very reminiscient of Allison's TES-295 spec for transmission fluid. In this case, the cost for test hardware and sequencing was so exhorbitant that no other blenders attempted licensing. AMSOIL reverse engineered the product. Even Mobil arranged a large volume buy of Transynd from Castrol(who makes it for Allison) and threw their own label on it. Of course they don't make much on the product, but at least they could keep some market share. I would expect reverse engineering of GM's own dexos-1 to determine basestocks, additives and their amounts. Then, blenders would independently verify that their product met the spec and would warranty the products themselves. In order for GM to require use of a proprietary licensed oil to maintain warranty coverage, they would have to apply for a waiver(which no one has ever done)from the FTC and make it available for free to customers for the duration of the warranty. This does not fit in with their profit targets, so I doubt they will go that far. Service writers will attempt to mislead and scare owners regarding the issue(no change there)however.

GM should hire some engineers who know about gasketing and stopping piston slap....and stop thinking about licensing fees....

The oil bottlers can just play the "meets or exceeds" without the licensing, like some other company's mentioned in this thread do now.