i was up at my local detailing shop here in town getting my car estamated for window tint and noticed they did oil jobs pretty cheap. so i asked the guy what kind of oil they used and he took me back into the storage room and they had about 5 barrels of HP oil. well i looked it up since i had never heard of it and turns out its hoosier penn oil which use to be Wagner oil which was made by shell gasoline and oil( shell stations). has anyone used this oil? is it any good? like valvoline? i run pennzoil in my car now but since theyre oil jobs cost the same amount as the oil and filter i get at autozone i might as well have them do it aslong as the oils good. i dont want any quaker state type crap in my engine.

 

first- there is nothing wrong with quaker state oil. Which ever friend at HS gave you that idea tell them they are misinformed.

Next, I deleted much of your post so you can see clearly what you are asking. Allow me to paraphrase for you

I can get oil, filter and labor cheap. It's the same price that I pay for Penzoil and a filter a the parts store. Is the oil used by the cheap service station as good as expensive oil?

Allow me to let you in on a secret. If you do mixed driving with little stop and go, then you should be fine changing your oil every 5k miles and WalMart oil will work just fine. If you do city driving then cut the miles in half (it's about operating hours really, not miles)

next- much of what you pay for with Valvoline, Penzoil and Castrol is advertising, sponsorships and branding. It has nothing to do with quality. Also, unless you are spinning 5k rpms or more most of the time, you are just fine with any oil.

There is the itsy bitsy rating based upon the society of automotive engineers. Those are the SAE stamps you see on bottles of oil. You will find that WalMart oil, Quaker State (which you hate) and others have an API rating of SN.

What does that mean? why it reduces friction, reduces sludge, improves engine life, improves economy

hey wait just a darn minute, isn't that what the more expensive oil companies claim is done by their oils? Answer- yup, and welcome to the wonderful world of marketing.

So, if an oil received a rating of SN from the SAE isn't that good enough for you?

 

So many people fail to read the owners manual. 5k on an oil change is fine unless in extreme driving conditions. City and stop and go driving is not normal driving conditions. As quoted, change your oil early under these conditions and it doesn't really matter which brand of oil you use. Just make sure it's changed on a regular basis.

Unlike oil from many decades ago, modern oils don't have the better additives as they used to. Even Shell Rotella T which is one of the top rated oils doesn't have as much zinc as it used to.

For the average user who does that mixed driving, any house brand oil such as Walmart oil will do just fine.

 

that only driving i do is from home to school, school to my grandmas, then my grandmas to home. unless i need to go somewhere or my girl does or i go to my dads which is 30 minutes from me.

 

i sell wolfshead oil. never heard of it? not surprised. its made by a major oil producer..... any brand of oil is ok really as long as its been tested by the API. the oil base never breaks down, only the thermal helix (molecule that allows oil to be dual weight) and the additives / detergents. oil filters are a different story

 

Absolutely not.

If your '86 has the factory engine, it has flat tappet lifters. The SM-SN oils also have a rating called "ILSAC GF-4" or "GF-5". To get that rating, you have to limit the amount of "ZDDP" (short for "zinc dialkyldithiophosphate"), an anti-friction additive that is critical for high-load shear applications. Which is exactly what you have with flat tappet lifters. Any engine that requires an SM or SN oil will have roller lifters, so the low ZDDP isn't an issue.

You should use an oil that has a SL/CI-4+ rating. The "CI" is a diesel rating ("C" = "compression", as in "compression ignition"), and the "SL" means it is also rated for a gasoline engine ("S" = "spark", as in "spark ignition"). You don't want to use a CJ-4 rated diesel oil, because it also will have reduced ZDDP.

Sorry, romance, you are dead wrong about oil bases not breaking down. While the VI improver additives are usually the first motor oil constituent to break down, a cheap base will be the next.

These "what oil" threads usually turn into flame wars, because of biases and misinformation (usually un-information). Hope that doesn't turn out to be the case here, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

not a flame war but let's get realistic. If you go to JiffyLube, or Walmart et al, they use what's in the container. It also comes down to is using the new SN oils which are out there really going to grenade his older engine???

I'd like to bring back leaded gas too

 

none of very little ZDDP in your oil? I used ZDDP additive in my 1972 Buick GS (sold) & my 1984 Trans AM. I also use Castrol Gtx 10W30 in the T/A & used 10W40 in the GS. Wosks for me.

 

You just revived a thread that had been dead for 12 years. Too bad, this one needed to stay dead...

 

ZDDP is very important with flat tappet lifters.
I make sure I use the additive in my 71 Cheyenne, 91 TA and 84 Mercruiser 305.