Engine oil Specs
Hello, I have been researching engine oil specs recently. I remember watching a tst webinar where someone was talking about a class that (Kevin McCarthy?) put on. I have tried to find more info about it but can’t find anything, does anyone know about this class and where to find it?
I don’t...but CarQuest Technical Institute has a PHENOMENAL class about oil specs and the reasons why they exist, how the measurements are carried out and how the consumer can understand the way to find out if their oil of choices meets or exceeds specs. Found out when the class is next avai in your area here: ctionline.com
I think you're referring to Kevin S. McCartney. I took his fuel efficiency diagnosis class around '05 - very enlightening. Unfortunately, his email address hasn't been valid for a while and I haven't seen any articles by him lately. I've reached out to TDJ to see if he's still offering classes or access to his articles/training materials; I'll post back if I hear anything.
Not a class, but an interesting site for information. oilspecifications.org Right hand side of this front page has links for two cheat sheets for $0.95 each for a printable download. Worth it. Best printed in a large format printer.
I believe they have an app available for under $10 as well.
Kevin ran his own show teaching classes for a decade or so. Unfortunately, there were not enough smart people in the business to make it work (a trainer needs income). He is now a manager for NAPA AutoTech. Check for their classes in your area. CTI also has … training on the subject, as do lubricant manufacturers. Actually, most of what you need to know is readily available. Subscribe to…
Not sure what your need for oil spec info is, or if it is similar to mine. As already stated, the resources listed and others have a lot of info on the history of motor oil specs and technical data regarding those specs. My needs are much more basic, yet it seems like it may actually be more challenging. I need my folks to be able to quickly determine what motor oils meet what specs(see…
Hi Randy: It's not as easy as it used to be. You're going to have to drill down through each oil refiner's productS to see if they meet the spec that you care about. How will you know that? you'll have to look up the spec that you care about. Let's look at two different products from the same refiner. (I only picked them because they were the first to pop into my…
The second is built around old technology, and IMO isn't a product to be used as a normal service fluid. This is an example of why basic (or, maybe, not so basic) subject knowledge is crucial, we have a wide variety of complex marketing schemes throw into the scenario that is complex by default.
The wording tells the story in these (or any) PDSs. There's a difference between being 'Certified' or 'Licenced' and 'Recommended for...' in the specs. The difference being whether the facility eats a warranty failure where lubrication is concerned or passes it to the manufacturer.
Why make it so complicated? As I keep stating, look it up on the suppliers website! This needs to be done frequently (daily) if the critical person is not really on top of things. If the supplier doesn't have a …. efficient database for this, you probably need to change suppliers. Even so, the critical person needs to know enough to sort through the information on the site and the specifics…
Unfortunately, it is complicated. By a manufacturers own admission, their fluids "meet" the requirements for many specs not listed on their sites(in out of new car warranty situations). I use the perspective of how much do we bill per minute (on average), to determine how efficiently my staffs time is expended. I see no efficiency in directing my staff to look it up and hope to find it in the…
How do you purchase your lubricants? What companies products do you use? I am trying to understand what is behind your perspective.
Marlin We use Service Pro and Rotella for our bulk products. Valvoline, Ams Oil, Quaker State and Mobil 1 for our packaged speciality oils. My perspective is based on several factors. - We do many first time fluid services(oil changes and other, when appropriate) on brand new vehicles that are in warranty. - We make every effort to use fluids that meet the OE spec anytime a vehicle is in…
Wow, your first sentence explains a lot; you have a huge base of lubricants to sort through. Most of the rest of what you wrote is very descriptive of my situation. I decided a long time ago to limit what we offer to significant steps in cost; otherwise, too much time is spent deciding among 5+ products, with some of them having very minor differences in cost. We end up loosing due to…
Thank you. i appreciate the feedback and I appreciate your contribution to this forum. Randy
Marlin We stock what we do based mostly on requests from our customers. It's a brand thing more than anything else. We only stock a few oils in each of the brands. Some are to meet specific specs, other are just standard weights GF5 oil. We actually sell the stuff. We track movement and GP$ per oil "package". We need to have oil in the store, the cost doesn't vary greatly and once you build…
Stocking only a few each of many manufacturers product is simply going to make accurate selling complicated, I don't think that there is a way to make that simple. We get brand requests too, but very few people are really hung up on it after some explanation when they feel like they are talking to someone who knows what matters; we find this to be especially true when we are offering our…