Pennzoil Warranty

[Isophix]

Pennzoil will warranty your engine components for 15y/500k or 10y/300k, as long as you use their products and follow owner's manual oil change recommendations.

So, here is the value proposition:

I plan to do UOA to determine how frequent my oil changes need to be, and I plan to use Pennzoil Platinum.

If I can do 5k or 7.5k oil changes based on the UOA, should I disregard the warranty offered by Pennzoil?

To follow the owner's manual, I would have to do 3k oil changes.

Should I just do the 3k oil changes, and save the UOA costs, and get the free warranty?

Has anyone ever successfully made a claim against Pennzoil's warranty?

 

[Rolla07]

If it can be proven to be damage caused by oil sure they might cover the cost. I believe the way its calculated makes it worthless. Regardless your trans will die or you will get bored before your engine dies from oil related issues.

 

[JLTD]

edit: that's not a bad warranty, but IMO this is Pennzoil's (and Valvoline's, they have a similar guarantee) attempt at customer loyalty with a warranty that will never be called into play.

I'd agree with performing some UOAs and setting your interval that way.

 

[PimTac]

I would forget about the warranty. The hoops you would have to jump through will make it useless. Just change your oil regularly per manufacturer recommendations and go. The chances of a oil related engine failure are slim to none and Slim just left.

 

[deven]

Originally Posted By: PimTac
Slim just left.

Wait where did Slim go??? Happy hour?

 

[Virtus_Probi]

I think the whole issue with these oil warranties is that proving the oil was the problem is on the customer's dime...their costs should be taken care of once they have the proof, but what are the chances of actually getting such proof?

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Rolla07
If it can be proven to be damage caused by oil sure they might cover the cost. I believe the way its calculated makes it worthless. Regardless your trans will die or you will get bored before your engine dies from oil related issues.

I would agree with you on the way the warranty is calculated, especially for vehicles with very conservative OEM OCIs. If you take a vehicle with a 3000 to 5000 mile OCI and look at PUP, you know darned well that the product is capable of at least M1 style 10,000 mile OCIs. When you start doubling or tripling your OCI frequency, over that many miles, that can add up to a significant savings. Of course, that's all predicated on the notion of the transmission still lasting or you not getting bored with the vehicle.

In something like taxi service, you could waste a lot of money on unnecessary oil changes.

 

[OilUzer]

this is not against Pennzoil (i like PPPP), however in general the biz world is counting on you losing and/or not having the proper paper work/docs and/or basically forgetting that you have the warranty which happens a lot with lower price products. consumers forget or don't want the headache associated with it ... they all make it difficult or not feasible to return or exchange anything e.g. shipping cost, etc. in the biz world they teach you to make money in very easy (one swipe, 10 seconds), but money out requires 10 minutes wait, 2 forms and 3 signatures ...

so many variables in the life of an engine and how can you prove the oil did this or that?
please ship your $1800 engine to PO Box 123 and our engineers will evaluate in less than 6 months unless ...
i'll say its a good marketing thing and gives consumer some level of confidence but in general forget about it

 

[Jooksing]

Originally Posted By: OilUzer

this is not against Pennzoil (i like PPPP), however in general the biz world is counting on you losing and/or not having the proper paper work/docs and/or basically forgetting that you have the warranty which happens a lot with lower price products. consumers forget or don't want the headache associated with it ... they all make it difficult or not feasible to return or exchange anything e.g. shipping cost, etc. in the biz world they teach you to make money in very easy (one swipe, 10 seconds), but money out requires 10 minutes wait, 2 forms and 3 signatures ...

so many variables in the life of an engine and how can you prove the oil did this or that?
please ship your $1800 engine to PO Box 123 and our engineers will evaluate in less than 6 months unless ...
i'll say its a good marketing thing and gives consumer some level of confidence but in general forget about it

Totally agree.

 

[kschachn]

Originally Posted By: OilUzer
so many variables in the life of an engine and how can you prove the oil did this or that?
please ship your $1800 engine to PO Box 123 and our engineers will evaluate in less than 6 months unless ...
i'll say its a good marketing thing and gives consumer some level of confidence but in general forget about it

And those variables result in a majority of dishonest claims. Let's say you bought a bottle of Coke and you claim it was battery acid instead, and you have the remainder of the bottle to prove it. How does Coke know that you didn't dump out the legitimate product and put in caramel colored sulfuric acid instead? Don't say that Coke bottled it that way and the lot analysis showed it was battery acid, because the Coca-Cola company would never allow bottles of beverage to be shipped that showed a faulty lot analysis.

The problem here is that any fully formulated oil meeting the grade and specification required by the automobile manufacturer will not result in an engine being destroyed, and neither ExxonMobil nor Sopus would ship oil that failed a lot analysis. I almost can't dream up a legitimate instance when an oil manufacturer's warranty would be applied.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: OilUzer
this is not against Pennzoil (i like PPPP), however in general the biz world is counting on you losing and/or not having the proper paper work/docs and/or basically forgetting that you have the warranty which happens a lot with lower price products. consumers forget or don't want the headache associated with it ... they all make it difficult or not feasible to return or exchange anything e.g. shipping cost, etc. in the biz world they teach you to make money in very easy (one swipe, 10 seconds), but money out requires 10 minutes wait, 2 forms and 3 signatures ...

And in a commercial fleet setting, for instance, time is everything. If a taxi motor were to blow at the fault of an oil back in the day, by the time samples are taken, shipped, measurements done, whatever inspection required for the oil company, the engine has long been replaced/rebuilt/repaired and the vehicle is back in service.

If I recall correctly, a lot of these warranties exclude commercial equipment, but the odds of a fleet user trying to take advantage of the warranty are slim in the first place, in my view.

 

[raytseng]

the real question is what new vehicle are you talking about that still requires a 3000 mile oci?

 

[Isophix]

2018 Hyundai Elantra Sport, 1.6L Turbo GDI, 7 speed DCT.

The severe service, which is everything, is 3k OCI.