I've always found it cool to see a 15 or 20 year old truck in excellent condition with original drivetrain because it was taken care of. My goal is to get 300k out of my vehicle minimum. I'm okay with having to do some wear and tear items along the way, but my goal is to get the most out of my vehicle without any major overhauls. I do all the maintenance on it like clock work. Down to greasing ujoints, door jams, you name it. Currently at 50k, so I have a long ways to go. I recently switched to walmarts supertech 5w30 synthetic. I know it's a decent oil, I did some research before buying it and people seem to approve it for being a good oil. It's got all the latest certifications and all should be good to go, right?
Despite going in all "well-informed" and buying the stuff at walmart, the price was so cheap I got this feeling that maybe I should 2nd guess the oil. No disrespect to anyone, but realistically I am just reading all this information on the internet. Who knows what kind of misinformation may get compounded over time, and realistically how many of the so called experts on here have chemical engineering degrees with experience in this specific field? Okay, enough of discrediting you guys. Point is that I'm just trying to go about this with a few grains of salt. What I did is to compare VOAs of premium brands to the supertech. I noticed pennzoil ultra 5w30 and supertech are very similarly packaged. I made sure the VOAs were done sometime in 2018 so the information isn't from some old packaging from say back in 2003. I noticed even though the additive packaging was similar, in terms of what additives they used and what they didnt use, the pennzoil and other premium brands just has a [censored] load more of everything. Is getting more additives worth it or is it just diminishing returns? In other words, is paying more for the extra additive concentration a worth while investment on say 5k OCI, given my goal with the truck? In the long haul do you think the supertech will noticeably dirtier oil rings on the piston? I'm just trying to figure out why brands like mobil 1 and pennzoil feel the need to have higher concentrations of additives. Is the additives whats driving the cost of these premium oils, or is the price just to create the illusion of superiority?
Despite going in all "well-informed" and buying the stuff at walmart, the price was so cheap I got this feeling that maybe I should 2nd guess the oil. No disrespect to anyone, but realistically I am just reading all this information on the internet. Who knows what kind of misinformation may get compounded over time, and realistically how many of the so called experts on here have chemical engineering degrees with experience in this specific field? Okay, enough of discrediting you guys. Point is that I'm just trying to go about this with a few grains of salt. What I did is to compare VOAs of premium brands to the supertech. I noticed pennzoil ultra 5w30 and supertech are very similarly packaged. I made sure the VOAs were done sometime in 2018 so the information isn't from some old packaging from say back in 2003. I noticed even though the additive packaging was similar, in terms of what additives they used and what they didnt use, the pennzoil and other premium brands just has a [censored] load more of everything. Is getting more additives worth it or is it just diminishing returns? In other words, is paying more for the extra additive concentration a worth while investment on say 5k OCI, given my goal with the truck? In the long haul do you think the supertech will noticeably dirtier oil rings on the piston? I'm just trying to figure out why brands like mobil 1 and pennzoil feel the need to have higher concentrations of additives. Is the additives whats driving the cost of these premium oils, or is the price just to create the illusion of superiority?