Is Pensiol really one of the worst oils? I'm sure its not the best, but i can't beilieve its that bad. We have used Pennsoil in most of our vehicles over the years. My 95 F150 has over 250K miles on it and has always had Pennsoil in it. I thought about changing oils when I got it about 10 years ago, but it had had Pennsoil in it since new and had 80K miles on it, so I just decided to stay with what it had. I have been using the high mileage stuff for the last 150K. It gets changed every 3K miles or sooner. Our old 94 Dodge Caravan ES have nearly 250K miles on it when we got rid of it? It had its oil changed about every 3-4K miles It ran smooth and didn't smoke. If this oil is so bad, then why have we had such good results with it?

 

No, it's now a very good oil.

...and it's spelled "PennZoil", not "Pennsoil"

 

Yeah, I know thats how its spelled. I realized that after typing it. Oh well, too late to edit it now. When you say that its a good oil now, what does that mean? When did things change or when was it not so good of an oil?

 

Well, you have 250K on your truck using Pennzoil without any oil related issues, I think you've answered your own question.

 

for me i just avoid pennzoil products (except the pennzoil platinum oil) from their filters to the oil.

1) the filters gave me a dry start ups everynow and then and some engine noises. now just FL820s only

2) the high mileage oil sludged up my dodge 1500 (changed oil no later than 3K). still dont know how it happened but that was what stopped all my relations to pennzoil conventional oil products.


but in their defense the yellow bottle pennzoil i never had any problems with but for me motorcraft oil is almost identical around here in price, so i choose that. The pennzoil platinum is a different story, that is great oil for a cheap price, we use that on our chevy.

 

The filters are repainted Fram, that explains the dry starts. The oil itself is fine. Shell currently owns the Pennzoil and Quaker State brands.

What kind of sludge exactly formed in the Dodge, total miles on it, etc. I'd like to hear the details.

Jim

 

Pennzoil used to advertise that its oils came from a "paraffin" base, although I do not think that other traditional oils were *that* different. That said, there are stories about Pennzoil and Quaker State causing sludge in engines, to the extent that I recall hearing about "oil pans full of waxy goop". I have no idea if it was the base oil that caused this problem, or simply different additive packages--maybe combined with oil change intervals that were way too long, and I am quite certain that the newer Pennzoil products are really not much different from other oils of the same type. I do remember that in the old days, Pennzoil and Quaker state were really clear looking and smelled nice, whereas Valvoline was browner and smelled a *bit* more like rotted dinosaur carcasses....

Although I've probably run a few crankcases of Pennzoil in my life, my "go to" oil has always been Valvoline, maybe in part because of their visible sponsorship of motorsports. Despite the Pennzoil smelling nicer and looking clearer, I wasn't convinced that it was a better oil. I've also done fine with Shell oils, and in fact have run my '91 BMW 318is mostly on 15W-40 Rotella, because BMW specs 15W-40 for that car.

Anyone who has taken engines up over 150 or 200k obviously has been doing something right, so the fellow who started this thread clearly has nothing to worry about....

George

 

Yes, Pennzoil Platinum is a very good oil. Check UOA's on BITOG. And you can usually get it for a decent price.

 

Ancient history. Besides, my personal experience with Valvoline and Pennzoil in air-cooled VW of the '60's was sludge with Valvoline and none with Pennzoil. BTW, I also was also "sold" on Valvoline by involvement in racing.

Todays base oils are commodities, known by "Group" I-V. The terms "paraffinic" and "asphaltic" are obsolete, dating back to when motor oil was taken directly out of the crude oil distillation tower and clay filtered. There are still some specialty uses for "napthenics", but not much in motor oils.

The purest Group III "synthetic" base oil is virtually 100 percent paraffinic. Understand that that is the chemical term for any straight-chain hydrocarbon molecule and does not necessarily mean wax. Methane, natural gas, is chemically a paraffin.

 

[QUOTE=jimandmandy]Ancient history. Besides, my personal experience with Valvoline and Pennzoil in air-cooled VW of the '60's was sludge with Valvoline and none with Pennzoil. BTW, I also was also "sold" on Valvoline by involvement in racing.

Todays base oils are commodities, known by "Group" I-V. The terms "paraffinic" and "asphaltic" are obsolete, dating back to when motor oil was taken directly out of the crude oil distillation tower and clay filtered. There are still some specialty uses for "napthenics", but not much in motor oils.

The purest Group III "synthetic" base oil is virtually 100 percent paraffinic. Understand that that is the chemical term for any straight-chain hydrocarbon molecule and does not necessarily mean wax. Methane, natural gas, is chemically a paraffin.
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Excellent description there, Jim. Thank You.

Ed

 

that stuff is JUNK. I was doing 25,000 mile OCI's and it sludged my engine after 454,673 miles.....I just don't understand it.
PennZoil must suck.

 

If you got 250k miles on PennZiol, I would not question if it is a good oil.

 

Yep, that is the bottom line right there.

 

Thats what I figured. I forgot to mention before that I always use the Motorcraft FL1A filter (no fram here). I was just curious why so many people seem to dislike it so much. A friend of mine basically says I'm a fool for buying it. I always tell him that something must be good about it if we can get that kind of mileage out of our vehicles.

 

Good job on using the motorcraft filters. Alot of people dislike it because they were told it was crap and will not think otherwise.

Mike