MOTUL Mania

Joined
Dec 31, 2017
Messages
15,071
Location
SE British Columbia, Canada
As seen at my local Lordco, an Auto Parts chain in Western Canada. Not sure why they stock Motul, but they still do. Enjoy.

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Those gear oils are really good.

The regular dot 5.1 motul brake fluid is a nice one but many motorcycle riders prefers to go for RBF600/660/700, boiling point of the latter is a 336°C.
 
Generally i find Motul rather overpriced for what they offer, they have a lot of marketing for sure as they sponsor a lot of racing teams and drivers... apart from the 300V range, their oils are pretty regular ( not bad, just average ) vs what we have in Europe from other brands.
Their "Full synthetics" are also mostly Group III and not much else.
They even sell an oil called Motul Sport Ester 5W-50... which has 5% ester in it...
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Originally Posted by sloinker
100% synthetic, Hmmmm..


NOPE.

Motul have tried this fake adevertising in Germany, they were sued by annother oil company and lost on court.
They had to re-label all their products for Germany. Before, it was "Vollsynthetisch", no it is "Techno Synthese"

Since this time, members of the german oil forum are wonderung how INCREDIBLE stupid Motul was to try this in Germany.

Trying to sell Group III Oil as Group IV makes this brand very unlikeable to me.
 
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Quote
Originally Posted by JohnG
Isn't Motul a French brand?

It is.


I think we may have solved the mystery of why the product is showing up in Canada at least.
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Originally Posted by ChristianReske
Originally Posted by sloinker
100% synthetic, Hmmmm..

NOPE.

Motul have tried this fake adevertising in Germany, they were sued by annother oil company and lost on court.
They had to re-label all their products for Germany. Before, it was "Vollsynthetisch", no it is "Techno Synthese"

Since this time, members of the german oil forum are wonderung how INCREDIBLE stupid Motul was to try this in Germany.

Trying to sell Group III Oil as Group IV makes this brand very unlikeable to me.

Some strong choice of words there. If Motul were incredibly stupid what does that say about the District Court of Cologne who ruled in Motul's favour in May 2015? It was a year later before Motul lost on the plaintiff's appeal at Cologne Higher Regional Court.

Motul were not trying to market a group III oil as a group IV oil, they argued that the hydocracking process results in something that is artificially created, along the same lines as Castol's defence to the NAD and therefore the term fully synthetic was accurate. The plaintiff's argument was the the general public associated a fully synthetic with higher cost group IV PAO base oils and the judges in the Higher Court agreed. Which is an interesting point because I know four German engineers, all great guys and all working in the upstream sectors of oil companies (i.e. not dealing in lubricants) who don't know what constitutes a "Vollsynthetisches Motoröl" or even what is meant by a Grp III or Grp IV oil. There are obviously going to be exceptions especially on this forum and any German oil forum but I can't help thinking a statement in the District Court ruling better reflects public knowledge on engine oils - "....the consumers have no concrete ideas regarding the chemical composition of a fully synthetic motor oil. From the Chamber's point of view, it therefore does not matter to consumers whether an engine oil consists of base oils based on PAO or ester or has been created using the so-called hydrocracking process"

Having said all that, one could argue that good outcome of the ruling (whether you agree with it or not) is that you can clearly see on the tin which oils are Grp III based and Grp IV based. How many threads have we seen questioning the base oil of a particular engine oil?

Christian, you will also be pleased to hear (if you don't already know) Motul appealed against the Higher Court Ruling at the Federal Court in 2018 and lost. Ref : I ZR 157/16
 
I applaud the strength of the labeling process in Germany. For those that want to know what they are paying their hard earned money on it offers a path through murky marketing.
 
But it's okay for a German owned company to label Grp III oils as fully synthetic in another EU country.

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Maybe splitting hairs but when I see Fully Synthetic on a label it means to me some amount of Group III and the possibility of Group IV or V contained within. When I see the 100% Synthetic label it implied to me that it is a PAO/Ester based oil. Of course with the wild wild west of labeling laws the distinction between Full Synthetic and 100% Synthetic means nothing anymore. The German labeling is great but their utilization of looser labeling laws to their benefit outside Germany is just business as usual I guess. Moral of the story: Buy German oil from Germany if you want truth in labeling.
 
@ NuttCase:

Tanks for the clarification! I only had the information that Motul lost on court. Therefore, i (and others) was puzzled why Motul tried to sell Group III as Group IV in Germany.
Your helpfull Information clarifies things!

My choice of words was not strong, it was german: To the point and expressing my amazemant about this case.
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted by ChristianReske
@ NuttCase:

Tanks for the clarification! I only had the information that Motul lost on court. Therefore, i (and others) was puzzled why Motul tried to sell Group III as Group IV in Germany.
Your helpfull Information clarifies things!

My choice of words was not strong, it was german: To the point and expressing my amazemant about this case.
smile.gif


Absolutely - my comments were not a criticism!

When I take a step back though and think about this particular case, it does indeed seem very bizarre for a French company to challenge the definition of "vollsynthetisch" in a German court. Especially against the backdrop of a previous ruling from 2008 when both a lower court and higher court ruled against a company for misuse of the same term. If anything, that earlier case is more interesting because the defendant's oil contained 45% PAO!

If any of your friends can recall the name of the plaintiff in the 2016 Motul case i.e. the company who brought the case to court I would appreciate it if you can share - I used to know but the record has been deleted from my brain and the company names have been redacted from the transcripts. (Same for the 2008 case)

Higher Regional Court Düsseldorf, I-20 U 46/05
 
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