The average consumer wouldn't care. It's oil, it comes out of a bottle, it's slippery, it goes in their engine, they forget about it for months until their next oil change. I would hazard a lot of this is also for industrial bulk applications, but that's just a guess.
API finds nearly half of certified oils have issues
- Thread starter Tom NJ
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When you’re in the industry, you know who the bad players are. And yes, they are absolutely here in the US.
Example. Unlicensed product…
Wide spread? No.
Of course it happens. I'm not naive, but you wrote widespread.
"Huge markets" in the USA. Name brands, give details. You are insider. Prove it. "millions, tens of millions of gallons of product."
Where??
wemay
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I know there are a boatload of unlicensed bad oils here. The topic is, API licensed oils with issues. I'm sure there are a few of those here too. But not stuff we buy here on bitog. Again.... all speculation.
I don't understand what is being represented, here. The only issue is if those SL grade "value" oils are being mislabeled and sold as something that they are not. Is that what you're asserting, Foxtrot08?
Major markets.
Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, NYC.
I fight against it every day.
But what incentive do I have to name names right now? I posted the above pricing. Proof it’s out there. One of the major players has already been named in this thread. I know of several others. And I’ve already been basically threatened on here because I said I would never buy oil from a company.
It’s very wide spread. You do you. You don’t have to believe me. I’m just saying it as someone that owns one of the largest lubricants distributors in the U.S. and a fairly well known brand - it’s out there. A lot of it’s out there. A lot more than you can even imagine is out there.
I am not surprised by this at all. We know products covered under something as stringent as FDA guidelines can have issues. Motor oil is far from an FDA product.
Absolutely.
So first off, if someone is willing to blend an SL oil and market it, in ~2022-2023 when I got that pricing - are you going to trust that is actually meets SL?
Or is it just line wash and some additive?
If they make that product - why would I trust that their SP oils are actually SP? Or that their Dexos oils, they’re actually paying the Dexos licensing fee on? Why would I trust them at all?
You can’t. Easy as that. There are more bad actors in this industry than good ones. From 2000 hour hydraulic oils, to motor oils claiming to be SP/GF6 and really aren’t. Speaking of industrial products to, that’s a wild world.
I understand that.
If you’re Scammy blender Mcstinksalot. And you can make an unlicensed oil for ~$3.50 a gallon. And it costs you ~$5.50 to make a licensed GF6 SP oil, let’s say.
You have a distributor that buys ~4 truck loads a month of your GF6 SP oil like clock work, alright.
What’s stopping you from just slipping in a few thousand gallons of the unlicensed crap oil once or twice a month? Maybe get rid of your line wash in it… maybe use up some bad base oil… they’ll never notice, right? Make a ten, twenty grand extra…
Yeah. That’s literally how it goes. It’s why distributor QC and supplier management needs to be very high priority.
Thanks for the insight into your world.
I’ve seen boutique blenders test a sample from each railcar they receive to decide if they reject or keep the whole car.(retired railroader here). Makes much more sense now.
Let’s look at options:
1. Bad oil goes into the waste stream. Whether it’s re-refined, burned, whatever. How much will you make? Not much. 0 to $1 gallon maybe.
2. Bad oil goes into non-critical lubricants. Most famously - bar and chain oils. But can go into a lot of things depending on viscosity. Can go into “motor honey” type products, can go into super cheap cutting and drilling fluids, etc. profit? $1-2 a gallon probably. Maybe more depending on package size. Most of these are slow moving / low volume products. Can’t do much.
3. Co-mingle it into your fast moving / high volume / low margin products. Extend margins. Probably make $2-3 a gallon. Maybe more.
Pretty easy to see the financial motives there.
On the more innocent side: There’s a lot of things that just can’t be avoided on the large scale. Changing additives may throw tests off. You’re supposed to drain down a tank below 10% to switch add packs of oils. Well, that can’t always happen. Or the change of information isn’t passed along. Etc.
I have a sample of an ISO 68 Cold heading Lubricant that’s sitting on my desk right now, that is an ISO 68 in name only.
I have a sample also in my collection that is oil filled with soap. Tanker was “cleaned” out - soaped. But never rinsed afterwards. And they tried to deliver to a warehouse of mine. It was one of the final straws that broke the back with that supplier. (Where do you think that 6500 gallons of soap contaminated motor oil went?) A very, very, very well known company. I stopped dealing with because of their QC issues. They also stopped letting me load my trucks there because I diesel flush my tankers. (Base oil flush on special products.)
I remember that when I was a Manager in the lube industry, I've been out of that since 2011.
That's a BIT different. Still - Blenders buying basestocks need to be vigilant as well.
I have my doubts how many brand name oils are cheeseing the system, but wow........
I was impressed with the quality control. Recently bought for my next OCI
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Like selling re-filtered oil or line wash to car dealerships, shops, etc. I doubt "they" use 2 micron filters, or do they?
In the UK people use cat liter to get the dye out of Diesel fuel. So if your regular Joe is willing to do, then large corporations will do it as well, no doubt about it.
Okay, blinders back on now.
THIS IS WHY DEXOS 1/2 MEANS SOMETHING.
Like selling re-filtered oil or line wash to car dealerships, shops, etc. I doubt "they" use 2 micron filters, or do they?
In the UK people use cat liter to get the dye out of Diesel fuel. So if your regular Joe is willing to do, then large corporations will do it as well, no doubt about it.
Okay, blinders back on now.
My brain might be as smooth as an ice rink at times. And I call myself a functional idiot. But I’ve grown up in the oil industry and I know who’s who at the zoo. It’s the one thing I know and I know well.
This is the internet however. So everyone is allowed to have opinions. My .02, is it’s out there every day. Some of it is probably innocent and harmless. But there’s a lot of it that is malicious as well.
Chances are, with a major brand oil, you’re probably safe. House brand / small brands are harder to judge. I work every day to say confidently that every drop of oil that I sell, meets spec and is a quality product. Because it literally has my name on it. And I value that more than anything else in business.
“Integrity is the essence of everything successful.”
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It's a license, where money from every gallon of motor oil sold is forwarded to GM. There's even more incentive to cheat here to make up the money the blender sends to GM.
People fake that too.
The difference is GM has more teeth than the API too. So there’s more of a risk in getting caught.
What oil company do you work for?
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