Castrol EDGE Professional LL03 5W30

All what your thoughts on the new Castrol EDGE Professional LL03 5W30 Engine being made in the USA? The red-lid version was made in Austria...

It's standard oil for our cars. I put it in customers and my tdis all day at the dealership I work for. No red cap though, just the gold. It's good oil, plus its vw certified.

Did the formula somehow get a bad translation from Austrian/German to English? Otherwise i dont see how country of origin matters.

I just changed my oil and I had two bottles of the red-lid stuff left over from the last change. I combined that with the gold capped stuff for the remainder. Visually the two looked the same, they even smelled the same.

Simple re-labeling of identical product.

kydsid said:

Otherwise i dont see how country of origin matters.

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Several years ago, the executives at the Firestone tire company felt the same way - why should country of origin matter, right? Well, they've learned the hard way that it really does because at one point, their US-made tires began blowing up left and right, most notably on pickups and large SUVs. Several dozen people died as a result. Ford motor company and Firestone were sued and paid a couple billion dollars to settle the case. Investigation of the fiasco showed unbelievable lack of quality control at the Firestone manufacturing plant in the US, which prompted the japanese management to shut down the US plant. For the next two years, all Firestone tires sold in the US were then imported from Japan. I didn't follow the fate of the US factory, so I don't know whether it reopened, but this only reinforced my mistrust of anything that bears the insignia "Made in U.S.A.", and if I can avoid it, I do. Will the US-made oil be any different than the Austrian-made one? I don't know, but when I stopped by the local VW dealer several months ago to get 4 liters of the oil for my next oil change, and I was told the oil is now produced here, I walked away, and I bought the LiquiMoly instead, which is still made in Germany. Another thing that bothered me about the US-made oil is that it now comes in 1-quart bottles (946 mL) instead of 1-liter bottles, which is how the Austrian-made oil was packaged. With the 1-liter bottles, it took exactly 4 bottles to do the oil change, now with the 1-quart bottles, you'll need about 1/4 liter of extra oil, so you will need to buy 5 bottles.

I got the last 4 red cap bottles at my dealer yesterday to do my 20k change on Sunday. Had two left over from prior purchases. Counter person mentioned they were the last red ones and the newest bunch the received had gold lids. Didn't think there was a difference. $8.53 a liter. Not too bad.

soot1 said:

Several years ago, the executives at the Firestone tire company felt the same way - why should country of origin matter, right? Well, they've learned the hard way that it really does because at one point, their US-made tires began blowing up left and right, most notably on pickups and large SUVs. Several dozen people died as a result. Ford motor company and Firestone were sued and paid a couple billion dollars to settle the case. Investigation of the fiasco showed unbelievable lack of quality control at the Firestone manufacturing plant in the US, which prompted the japanese management to shut down the US plant. For the next two years, all Firestone tires sold in the US were then imported from Japan. I didn't follow the fate of the US factory, so I don't know whether it reopened, but this only reinforced my mistrust of anything that bears the insignia "Made in U.S.A.", and if I can avoid it, I do. Will the US-made oil be any different than the Austrian-made one? I don't know, but when I stopped by the local VW dealer several months ago to get 4 liters of the oil for my next oil change, and I was told the oil is now produced here, I walked away, and I bought the LiquiMoly instead, which is still made in Germany. Another thing that bothered me about the US-made oil is that it now comes in 1-quart bottles (946 mL) instead of 1-liter bottles, which is how the Austrian-made oil was packaged. With the 1-liter bottles, it took exactly 4 bottles to do the oil change, now with the 1-quart bottles, you'll need about 1/4 liter of extra oil, so you will need to buy 5 bottles.

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I'm 61. If I chose to refuse to do business with any industry that has been accused/convicted of lying/cheating/fraud, etc, I'm afraid I'd be living naked in the forest, eating off the land, a la Bear Grylls.

I have a problem declaring an entire country's industrial output as untrustworthy.

tdiatlast said:

I'm 61. If I chose to refuse to do business with any industry that has been accused/convicted of lying/cheating/fraud, etc, I'm afraid I'd be living naked in the forest, eating off the land, a la Bear Grylls.

I have a problem declaring an entire country's industrial output as untrustworthy.

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I respect your opinion, and since this is a free country, you are free to live by your convictions, whatever they may be, and I will live by my own ones.

Ok but has Castrol had a quality problem?

kydsid said:

Ok but has Castrol had a quality problem?

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Uhhh...well...no, not that has been posted here, or elsewhere, that I know of. That was my point. I don't understand the "reverse xenophobic" attitude about American manufacturing at all.

tdiatlast said:

Uhhh...well...no, not that has been posted here, or elsewhere, that I know of. That was my point. I don't understand the "reverse xenophobic" attitude about American manufacturing at all.

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I don't get that attitude at all either.

FWIW among synthetic oil aficionados, Castrol was a dirty word.
The original Castrol Syntec oil wasn't really a synthetic, but was actually a group III oil. Group III oils are more highly refined petroleum base oils and approach the qualities of true synthetics using a process called severe hydrocracking.

True synthetics such as Mobil 1 are group IV oils and use synthetic base stocks.
To make a long story short (too late I know) Mobil sued Castrol for claiming the less costly Syntec was not a true synthetic and that Castrol was falsely advertising and marketing it's product.

The court ruled that even though Castrol Syntec didn't start with synthetic base stock the process used to further refine it modified it enough that it could be considered a synthetic.

Since then, group III oils have gotten really good, but I was initially surprised to see VAG put it's blessing on Castrol.

I seem to remember the severe hydrocracking process for refining motor oils was first developed by Petro Canada, and then I believe Chevron acquired the technology from them. I'm not sure where Castrol gets their base stocks, but it likely comes from one of the large oil companies. Shell RotellaT 5-40 is a group III too.

And some Mobil 1 synthetics are now group III oils. How things change.

kydsid said:

And some Mobil 1 synthetics are now group III oils. How things change.

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Yep. After that they had to compete somehow.
Some say that group III oils have now gotten so good there's not much difference as long as you're not doing really long extended drains.