Historical question

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I grew up hearing the term detergent oil & non-detergent oil . What time period are we looking at , when detergent oils started to appear on the market , to a significant degree ?

Seem to remember the multi viscosity oils coming on the scene some time in the middle - late 1960's ?
 
Originally Posted By: WyrTwister
Seem to remember the multi viscosity oils coming on the scene some time in the middle - late 1960's ?

Amalie was out with the first 10w-30 multi visc oil in 1953.
Kendall also claims to have invented multiviscosity oil in 1953 too.
Then Trop-Artic in 1954.
 
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Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
API grade SC appears to be the first detergent specification, starting in 1963-back in the days when 100K miles out of an engine was considered a miracle!



Yep , when I was growing up , by 100,000 miles they were using a significant amount of oil .

Still have that in the back of my mind , when / if I get 100,000 miles out of a car , I figure I got my money out of it .

Last car I had to bite the dust was a 1996 Chevy Lumina 4 door Sedan . Tranny went out & was not worth the cost of replacing / rebuilding .

Bit I never had to add any oil to the 3.1l V-6 , in between 3000 mile OCI .

All in all , we had 3 - 4 Luminas , over the years ( 1 was totaled ) . We loved them . Seems like we had more transmission issues than engine issues ?
 
Originally Posted By: oil_film_movies
Originally Posted By: WyrTwister
Seem to remember the multi viscosity oils coming on the scene some time in the middle - late 1960's ?

Amalie was out with the first 10w-30 multi visc oil in 1953.
Kendall also claims to have invented multiviscosity oil in 1953 too.
Then Trop-Artic in 1954.



When did multi viscosity oil capture greater than0% of the market .

My late father in lay was a mechanic at the local Chevy dealer . I remember him telling the story of when Chevy first started using multi viscosity oil for the initial fill .

They would go to drain the oil & nothing would come out . They would have to pry the oil pan off . The oil had polymerized into a goo .

Thanks , :)
 
Originally Posted By: WyrTwister
When did multi viscosity oil capture greater than 0% of the market .
Probably slow to ramp up usage. The multi-visc likely costed more for sure, and people are slow to change their oil buying habits.
I'd bet some were happy they didn't have to pour kerosene or gasoline anymore into their oil sumps to get the old engines to turn over in the winter!
 
My dad had lots of engine trouble prior to the 68 valiant he bought. He told me about flat cams,rod knocks and burned valves at relativly low milages.

He bought the valiant new and its 225 made it 150k+ with no real issues. So did his 70 and 74 bugs.

He only used pennzoil 10w40 with z7 in everything.
 
Originally Posted By: WyrTwister
Sorry , typo , meant to say 50%of the market .

Thanks , :)
I'd guess circa 1958-60. I can't recall using single-viscosity in winter.
 
My dad stayed with single vis oil completely in South Texas, up to when he passed away in 1986. I used up the last of his oil stash finally in 1992.
 
The general consensus at that time was that if you had a old vehicle with lots of miles run on non-detergent oil, switching to the new detergent oil would loosen stuff up and cause big problems. So some users stuck with the straight oils and others who bought brand new cars would run the new detergent oils.
 
Many good old boys were slow to change. Had a friend that used single grade
into the 70's. Used 20W-20 in the winter months, had to put a small
charcoal grill under the motor to get it running one winter when the temps got
down below 0°.
 
Originally Posted By: CR94
Originally Posted By: WyrTwister
Sorry , typo , meant to say 50%of the market .

Thanks , :)
I'd guess circa 1958-60. I can't recall using single-viscosity in winter.

As Nyogtha hints, it was probably very much location dependent. In our winters, multigrades got popular quickly.
 
As I think I have related , when I was a kid , Dad used Gulf 20 weight oil , summer & winter , in both the car and the tractor .

He may not have switched to multi weight oil until the 70's or the 80's . He switched to Quaker State , partially due to price , I think .

I have used Quaker State for years . Untill we purchased the little red Sonic . It requires Dexos & I have used Mobil synthetic .
 
Originally Posted By: WyrTwister
I have used Quaker State for years . Untill we purchased the little red Sonic . It requires Dexos & I have used Mobil synthetic .
Quaker State is dexos1 in semi-syn and full syn flavors if you want to keep that brand.
 
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