Why would Castrol market in this way?!

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by C Clay, Feb 9, 2025.

  1. C Clay

    C Clay Member

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    Seems nuts. It’s great oil, but to send this message…
     

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  2. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    What they lose in oil changes, they’ll gain in volume?
     
  3. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    In actuality with science and all the BS we have today we should be able to get 20,000 mi out of an oil change to be honest about it I mean that's just where we should be now all the other things that create the nastiness inside of the engine EGR and all this and that I get it Don't worry but it's just probably where we should be we're just not there oh well they're trying to get there and it is marketing if you have good sense you already know that we're not there and with some of these modern GDI engines people are rolling back their oil change intervals on their own to see if it makes any difference because a lot of these things these folks are failing engines at 50,000 miles on up man that is horrible having a car payment and you're got a car sitting at a dealership that can't get an engine and on and on and on here and I want this new car for what reason exactly yeah I don't think so I would much rather hold on to my old Corolla or generation too and not have to worry about a payment and this kind of money
     
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  4. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    If they are paying more for logistics or say... tariffs to get their product on your shelf relative to their competition, the inevitably marked-up price needs some strong claims to back up that pricetag.

    So they tell you you only need 1/4 x while charging you 2 x.

    Beyond that, let's not forget that Castrol has done some pretty interesting things in their marketing in the past. Interesting enough to get them in front of the US Supreme court.
     
  5. C Clay

    C Clay Member

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    Do tell. Really I don’t know. In my teens and early 20’s I was indoctrinated that Castrol GTX was the best product there ever was. And then eventually, I just gave up and just made sure the oil got changed.
     
  6. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    In a nutshell they were selling a motor oil that they claimed to by synthetic, and several of their competitors claimed that it was not synthetic. It mostly boiled down to a question of technique: must every drop of product be synthesized, or can some of the total be merely refined?

    Since these were oil companies, they had armies of lawyers and everyone went to war over it.

    Many more words on this link.


    I recall that the specific product was Castrol Syntec, sold in the mid 1990s.
     
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  7. CR94

    CR94 Senior Member

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    No, not the U.S. Supreme Court. As your BitOG link says, the ruling was by the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. not any actual court. That distinction has been pointed out numerous times on the BitOG site.