My first commercial customer came by for a qt of oil this afternoon. I didn't think much about it. Until he said his was low on the dipstick. And he reminded me that I'd talked him into using the Stens brand of oil. He said he's never had to add oil to it, since it was new.
This man is meticulous about taking care of his stuff. And it took a couple of visits to get him to use the Stens brand. He was buying the Kawasaki brand, because his engine is a Kawasaki.
Also, I have faith in Stens oil. But one oil change from the Kawasaki brand to Stens and he's now having to add oil between oil changes. This could just be a coincidence. But there'll be no way to convince him of that, if in fact his engine is now burning oil.
He says there's no leaks And he hasn't noticed the engine smoking.
I believe the engine he's talking about is the FR651V. NOTE: He didn't bring it by the shop. Just showed up at the end of the day needing a quart of oil.
#2
tom3
Lot of the old gearheads used to say use one oil and stick with it. Not sure if that's true today but might be something to it? Different additives and detergents etc.
#3
Scrubcadet10
I read the SDS on Kawasaki ktech oils a few months ago and apparently Citgo makes the oil for them. Don't know about stens.
ASk your rep who blends the Stens oil.
I do not use their multi grade only their SAE 30 .
For multigrade I use RGS's 10W 40 so only keep the 2 engine oils.
If the customer is a good one then offer to change back at the next service if he is not happy with the oil you used.
Don't know what they offer in the USA but I am fairly sure the stuff they sell here is blended here as they offer 44's.
If they had a 10W 40 I would give it a try but the 10W 30 blows out the exhaust on the Honda line trimmers that they all use .
Toss in a "free " oil filter to sweeten the deal .
Down here they tried to introduce OPTI branded oil as a premium & were offering a double engine warranty if used from new but it was way too expensive for my customers.
#5
cpurvis
I had the same thing happen with a C50 Chevy truck, 350 V8.
When I bought it, the seller told me to use Conoco oil or it would use oil. I paid no attention to him; oil is oil. Next oil change, I switched to Quaker State because I had a bunch of it on hand.
Just as he said, the oil consumption went way up. I have no explanation other than sometimes oil is not oil.
