Mrs B’s car requires an oil change. Out of warranty and happy to diy.

OEM filter purchased and was about to pull the trigger on Castrol Edge when Costco opens again tomorrow but noted Halfords selling fully synthetic oil for less than half the price of the Castrol. The Halfords oil meets the manufacturer oil specs so I’m going to presume it will be a-ok?

Yep, as long as it meets the manufacturer’s spec it’ll be fine.

It might be worthwhile getting prices from euro car parts/carpart4less also.

And don’t forget to use the discount codes – never pay full price!

I got some of that Halfords £15 for 4 litres gear and the cars wheels have not fallen off.

Stupid as it sounds I feel more confident in a car* if it has branded oil in it.

It is the blood of the engine after all.

*Tend to own older cars.

I am pedantic about OEM filters and OEM or OEM quality oil and was about to go down the route of petronas, edge or Mobil 1 for the merc but spotted a dealer selling 20L bottles of genuine mercedes oil for £50 delivered. Couldnt get close, even with ECPs Triple QX on offer that I use in the landy and much happier even though I know other oils do match the spec.

I’ve always bought castrol or mobil, it’s not much more expensive like for like if you shop around.

Stupid as it sounds I feel more confident in a car* if it has branded oil in it.

& as an ex motor mechanic/fitter I totally agree.
Spec is important obviously but I’m somewhat *what’s the word* about Halfrauds.

Is it dolphin friendly?

Spec is important obviously but I’m somewhat *what’s the word* about Halfrauds.

…Influenced by ridiculous judgements?

…Trying to be stw-cool?

…swayed too much by advertising to be confident?

😉

Halfords oil certainly used to be made by Comma, who also supply OEMs. I can’t remember who it’s made by now, but IIRC is another big player.

As submarined just said, there are only so many places that ‘make’ the oil, it is not as if Halfords make it at head office on the cheap. It meets the manufacturers spec, so is the correct oil, but I guess it might be missing a few extras that the more expensive oils have in them, which allegedly makes them better and obvs. more expensive.

Given how much the other halfs Mini Cooper drinks oil (still within an acceptable level for Mini allegedly), I got the ‘cheap’ Halfords oil at Black Friday. 8 litres cost me less than their normal 5 litres.

Surely it’s one of the few products you can be confident in, as it’s made to a specified standard?

The extra money for branded oil is just funding motorsports sposnsorship and other marketing activity.

Be aware when it comes to manufacturer oil specs of the difference between ‘approved by’ versus ‘meets spec XYZ’. If your fussy then it must be the former as that oil has been tested by the manufacturer.

As for oil filters I always thought just go with a reputable manufacturer who also produced OE parts e.g. Mann, Bosch etc > WRONG! I cut up a Bosch filter cylinder/stretched it out and measured length and then later did the same on a Mercedes OE filter cylinder – the MB OE filter was 30% longer. OE always for me now.

I’ve noticed most independent garages use 60 or 200 litre barrels of “high performance” or similarly unbranded oil.

…..which doesn’t bode well if your car has a DPF requiring low-ash oil.

You are normally better using cheaper oil (to the correct spec) and replacing more often than expensive and changing less often…

You are normally better using cheaper oil (to the correct spec) and replacing more often than expensive and changing less often…

Depends on where you put the cut off between cheaper/expensive. Certainly, the case that a fully synthetic oil is more stable with use, semi-synthetic and mineral less so in that order. But then I wouldn’t put mineral oil in a modern engine at all, and I don’t see the point in replacing syntetic oil every 5,000 miles like some people, it simply doesn’t degrade in that timescale like mineral oil did.

Also, modern engines a just better built than when a lot of the advice was relevant. An old BL B-series might last 100,000 between complete rebuilds if you gave it that sort of TLC. I wouldn’t be surprised if an average Ford Fiesta (not the turbo eco-boost ones maybe) could do that mileage with just keeping the oil topped up.

Having said that I just bought 25l of Morris oil from my local Ford dealer for £47 and change it annually if I’m doing less than the 12k milage intervals or every 6 months if I’m doing substantially more otherwise I’d lose track, so I probably do average quite a bit less than the recommended intervals.