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Oil prices - Car oil that is!

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Vetterin

Vetterin

Senior member
Can someone explain to me why although a barrel of oil is at a 5 year low a lousy quart of Dino is still over $2????? How can the price of gas be down over 60% in the past 3-4 months but I haven't seen oil drop a penny. Is it just me or is there something wrong with this picture???😕
 
Its you

Motor oil the price you pay is more on the brand, type, refining. I assume it takes more refining than gas
 
It seems to do with the brand more than anything, meaning, the more advertising you see for a brand the more it's going to cost (not counting synthetics of course).

I was at my local general store yesterday and they had no-name 10W30 for $.88/quart.
 
Motor oil also didn't increase in price as much as gasoline when oil prices went up. It's easier to shop on price for motor oil, so the price is less elastic.

ZV
 
I think the costs of motor oil mostly come from things other than the raw materials. A quart of motor oil is a specific 1/168 of a barrel of crude.
 
OP,

I can't explain it at all. I usually go to Autozone for one of their combo deals (5 qts oil and a filter). Last month they had two pretty good deals but I didn;t need to change my oil. This month the price on a similar combo rose by $5 even though the price of vrude fell again.

I keep a log of how much a gal of gas costs each time i fill up. The price has plummeted the last three months ... yet the price of motor oil seems to remain relatively constant ... or increases!

Go figure ...
 
There is always a lag in prices. The oil you're buying wasn't sucked up from the sand two days ago, refined yesterday, and shipped to the store this morning. You're paying more because it cost more to produce and to ship and to store. Also, they took a big hit in profit when the price of oil was so high so now they have to recoup some of those lost profits.

It all makes sense when you think about it.
 
Oil is going to continue to get more expensive as the API, ILSAC, manufacturer, etc. requirements keep increasing. Unless these new upcoming organic adds are cheaper than their metallic counterparts, expect costs to continue to rise.

The benefit though is the oil quality keeps going up and up. Even the cheapest SuperTech API SM oil can go 5000 miles safely in most cases...and that's pretty impressive when you think about it.

Chuck
 
I didn't see oil go up that much for my car as barrels went up, so refining and other must be most of the picture, but that would explain why it's not dropped massively.
 
I really try and not shop there, but, Walmart has 5 qt. jugs of most all oils there. When you're talking about $14 for 5 qts. of dino Havoline, and $26 for 5 qts. of Mobil-1...and you're running that at least 5,000 miles...there's really about 0 difference between dino and synthetic.

If you're keeping the vehicle past 5 years, you mine as well just bite the $10 bullet and run the synthetic.

Chuck
 
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