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Will ASDA oil be ok for my engine?
adrianreeve - 7/10/11 at 02:44 PM

Asdas are having a special on their engine oils. They have 5l of 5w-30, formulated for zetec engines, and matching the standard dictated by ford. It's £10, down from £16. My question is, I know that Fords own or Mobil, Shell etc will be the best, but will this stuff be ok?

Cheers

Adrian

blakep82 - 7/10/11 at 02:50 PM

who do you suppose makes it?

DixieTheKid - 7/10/11 at 02:51 PM

Read the back of the bottle, i know it reads ASAD but it must be mabe by someone, who know it could be a nice brand.

Thats the first thing i would find out anyway. Cheers

mistergrumpy - 7/10/11 at 02:58 PM

I once used Aads oil in around 1997. It was crap stuff. Real rubbish that turned all mayonnaise-y. Dropped it all out after a couple of hundred miles and replaced it all. Don't touch the crap.

adithorp - 7/10/11 at 03:04 PM

The only thing I'd say is be very carefull of the wording surrounding oil approvals. Things like "meets Ford spec XYZ" or "exceeds API xyz" aren't the same as "approved by Ford to spec XYZ" or just "API xyz". They mean they say it's to that spec, but haven't put thier money (a considerable amount required) where thier mouth is and actually submitted it for testing.

MikeRJ - 7/10/11 at 03:11 PM

quote:
Originally posted by mistergrumpy
I once used Aads oil in around 1997. It was crap stuff. Real rubbish that turned all mayonnaise-y. Dropped it all out after a couple of hundred miles and replaced it all. Don't touch the crap.


How do you know that ASDA's supplier for their oil is the same as it was 14 years ago? Seems very unlikely.

designer - 7/10/11 at 03:20 PM

It's always best to stick to brands.

Cheap oil is probably re-cycled.

mrwibble - 7/10/11 at 03:34 PM

seems a lot of cow manure on here. its not like asda have a crappy little refinery in the back with the bakery and the frozen fish, they buy it from a refinery. some people in the below thread swear by asda, but one suggests its not the cheapest around.

http://locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=161483

cliftyhanger - 7/10/11 at 03:35 PM

I believe it is made by car-lube. Should be OK, have used it before. No issues. Guess it needs looooong term tests to see if it damages etc, but in all honesty I think it will be fine.

coyoteboy - 7/10/11 at 03:39 PM

I used to use costco's own 5-50 and had no issues with it, it meets all the required grades. All you need to do is check what spec it meets, if it meets those it's just as good as the next oil that does by definition. IIRC Costco's used to be Fuchs oil rebadged.

While there are only a few manufacturers of oils, they do have their own additives (or rather mixes of additives) and so they're not "all the same", but if the spec is the same they'll do the same job.

[Edited on 7/10/11 by coyoteboy]

macc man - 7/10/11 at 03:54 PM

A lot depends on how old your car is. I would be reluctant to put a cheap oil in a near new car. In the old days you could run an average runabout on any brand of oil. Modern cars are mainly run on synthetic oil. Costs a bit more but will give longer engine life. Also watch out for warranty issues.

adrianreeve - 7/10/11 at 04:01 PM

It's a 94 Silvertop Zetec in my Haynes Roadster - no warranty issues here!

Cheers

Adrian

v8kid - 7/10/11 at 04:38 PM

Well I had a very different and positive experience with Asda oil. I tried Halfords oil and the engine sounded awful after a couple of thousand miles - even my sister in law noticed it. I changed to Asda and it was like night and day - no rattles and sounds smooth. Just done a 3k camping trip in the Alps and the car was working hard - changed the oil on returning and it was clean - this is on a 160k diesel mind.

As a policy I change oils every 5k - I think 10k is too long to hold all the impurities in suspension and 5k is a nice easy no to remember when you are doing 30k a year.

As a matter of interest the used oil goes in the central heating oil tank so I get value out of it twice

Cheers and ta for the heads up I'm off to buy 6 months worth

Forgot to mention one of the tellers at asda was a petrolhead and he reckoned it was castrol - dunno if its true or not though.

[Edited on 7-10-11 by v8kid]

MikeRJ - 7/10/11 at 05:18 PM

quote:
Originally posted by v8kid
Forgot to mention one of the tellers at asda was a petrolhead and he reckoned it was castrol - dunno if its true or not though.


Supermarkets renegotiate deals all the time, so it's entirely likely that the supplier gets changed depending on who offers them the best deal, even different grades could come from different suppliers. However, the oil container will have the specifications that the oil meets printed on it, so it should be simple to determine if it's suitable or not.

If you can get hold of the material safety data it will give the manufacturer, e.g. ASDA 15W40 was supplied by Mobil back in 2004, may be different now.

britishtrident - 7/10/11 at 05:21 PM

Asda branded oil will be made by Comma or Carlube both very respected lubricant manufacturers, back in the old days they (Asda) used to sell very questionable reprocessed 20w/50.

Any synthetic engine oil of the correct grade changed regularly should be fine as synthetic oils are much less dependant on additives than mineral oil.

[Edited on 7/10/11 by britishtrident]

britishtrident - 7/10/11 at 05:27 PM

And always buy fully synthetic --- part synthetic was a short term bodge left over when the days when synthetic oils were expensive.

macc man - 7/10/11 at 05:37 PM

I used a cheap oil as a flushing oil in my silvertop and found it had a lot of tappet noise. Replaced with correct grade of synthetic oil and was much quiter. It does matter on Zetec engines.

britishtrident - 7/10/11 at 05:59 PM

quote:
Originally posted by macc man
A lot depends on how old your car is. I would be reluctant to put a cheap oil in a near new car. In the old days you could run an average runabout on any brand of oil. Modern cars are mainly run on synthetic oil. Costs a bit more but will give longer engine life. Also watch out for warranty issues.



When was the last time you looked at the label on supermarket own brand oil ? Fully synthetic engine is not expensive Supermarkets are selling 5w 30 and 5w/40 fully synthetic in 4 litre or 5 litre containers for £16 to £25. Last year Morrisons were selling 5 litres Texaco Havoline fully synthetic 5/30 for £8.25.

There as far as I know thee are 3 or 4 different methods for producing synthetic oil feed stock the cost of these processes varies but all produce oils that are major improvement over mineral oils. The most expensive process is that used to produce Mobile 1 and a couple of other top of the range synthetic oils, this was made only in Mobile's refinery near New Orleans which was knocked out for a considerable time by Hurricane Katrina the resultant lack of supply was one of the factors that kept the price of Mobile 1 high. The synthetic oils sold at lower prices are produced by cheaper process but are excellent oils.


The major exception where great care has to be taken are oils for VW PD diesels and oils for extended service with these you have to make 100% sure that the oil used meets the manufacturers exact specification.

[Edited on 7/10/11 by britishtrident]

mistergrumpy - 8/10/11 at 02:58 AM

quote:

How do you know that ASDA's supplier for their oil is the same as it was 14 years ago? Seems very unlikely.


I don't. I was just trying to answer a question that was asked and back it up with my experience. I agree it may be out of date information but I only tried to help.