Originally Posted by tiger862
I emailed Valvoline about this and all they claimed was that Valvoline would stand behind Napa since it is manufactured by Valvoline and it exceeds Chrysler licences. If you think Valvoline or any other companies make different formulas for each store that wants an oil product to compete with your brand then that is your opinion. I can't see any company making a special brew with millions spent on research just to lower the price then put there name or company at risk. Again my opinion. Look at UOA and it is within regular specs and formula of Valvoline. I am now running Napa synthetic blend 5w20 after lots of research before I step up to full synthetic. I no longer worry about the quality of Napa oil.
Depends. It's a big company. I could see it go either way where they might have their own formula in order to differentiate house branded product from their own branded product. Then a separate one they make available for house brands. But they could save on that extra cost by not making multiple versions. Even then, does Ashland do anything other than buy some additive pack from Lubrizol, BASF, Afton, Oronite, etc?
I'm not sure developing a new oil is all that difficult or costly. The big motor oil companies will formulate specific oils just for one racing team. I thought that the big cost was in qualifying them with all the sequence tests.