Today I was quoted $75 for a 5-gallon pail of Delo 100 40W - the store has five buckets in stock. Is this a fair price?
I have straight 40W in my engine now, but it's not CF2 rated, so I want to change it before any more trips.
Thanks, John
I pay about $12 per gallon for Rotella 40W at our local Shell distrubtor in gallon jugs. Jack
I just paid 609.00 for a drum 55 gal. that included pa sales tax of 6%. 75.00 for 5 gal a little on the steep side.
If 55 gallons is a bit over $10 per gallon then $15 per gallonisn't terrible for oil, but not great either. I don't use 40 weight so I don't know the going rate.
I just bought 12 gal of Delo 100 30w for 13.76 per gal.
John
I usually pay around $12 +/- gal depending on where I buy it and how much I buy at a time.
FWIW ;D BK ;D
I paid just over 11 bucks a gallon (case price) for Rotella 40 wt. at a local oil distributor here in Abilene TX.
Paul
Paid $16.12 per gallon plus tax for Delo 400 W40 from FleetPride this week.
AJ
Quarts off the shelf are cheaper than $75.00 for 5 gallons. Don't remember the exact price but it was around $4.75 per quart which is less than $75.
Is a larger container more convenient?
Mike
Usually the bigger the container, the cheaper the price, because the cost of packaging is less.
Quote from: Iceni John on September 03, 2009, 03:54:37 PM
Today I was quoted $75 for a 5-gallon pail of Delo 100 40W - the store has five buckets in stock. Is this a fair price?
That depends where you are. In downtown El Paso, TX, that's a ripoff. In Manila, UT, that's probably a fair price.
Quote from: Ed Hackenbruch on September 04, 2009, 08:22:42 AM
Usually the bigger the container, the cheaper the price, because the cost of packaging is less.
Not always so. A 5-gallon bucket costs more to make than 5 1-gallon oil jugs. The drum has to safely store 30 pounds of liquid, and withstand being handled, bumped, knocked over, stacked etc, possibly for years before the contents are all used up. Thus, the bucked is thick and injection molded, has several separate parts (body, lid, handle, bail wire, spout, cap) each of which has to be made and fitted.
The jug carries 6 pounds, isn't considered stackable and is a temporary container, so it is thin, blow-molded and only has a cap.
In addition, the jug is purchased if far greater numbers than the bucket, lowering jug pricing even more.
Or, to use an example which most busnuts can more easily understand, consider the packaging price of a beer keg, compared to an equivalent volume of aluminum beer cans.
Losenut,
I was having problems with my calculations. At 4.75 per qt time 4 qts per gallon times 5 gallons I come up with $95 for 5 gals. Is that really cheaper than $75 per 5 gallons? ;)
Quote from: loosenut on September 04, 2009, 07:56:30 AM
Quarts off the shelf are cheaper than $75.00 for 5 gallons. Don't remember the exact price but it was around $4.75 per quart which is less than $75.
Is a larger container more convenient?
Mike
Even here in TN where we are considered "backwards" $95 is more than $75.00! (which is too high in the first place.)
;D BK ;D
Last week I bought a 55 gal drum of Exxon XD3 50w (Just fine for dd2s per dd mechanics and other credable sources like Tejas Coach (http://www.tejascoach.com/)) and paid $5 gal (Not a typo and yes I am bragging). They had one drum left when I bought mine at the Exxon dealer here in Roanoke.
BG6, note that the first word in my post was "usually". :) I was thinking in terms of quart containers vs. gallon containers. We fulltime and don't own property anywhere, so i don't even consider anything larger than case size. ;D
Thanks for all your sage input (as always). I felt that $75 was too high, but I had no other prices to compare it to. It was surprising to find several 5-gal pails in stock anywhere near here, but it was at a marine engine parts supplier and I know that a few of the boats in Newport Beach still use Detroits. Tomorrow I'll call some of the boatyards there, and I'll call Southern Counties Lubricants in Anaheim on Monday (maybe they will give me the State of CA pricing that we get our fleet's lubricants for at work). I'll also check prices on Rotella and any other available CF2 oils, and let you know what I find.
Next project is to buy a Fumoto oil drain valve, then with that and a hand pump to transfer oil from a 5-gallon pail to the engine it should be a snap to change oil. I have some non-CF2 straight 40W in the engine now, so I want to change it before the valves get deposits.
Thanks, John
Quote from: Iceni John on September 04, 2009, 09:42:34 PMbut it was at a marine engine parts supplier and I know that a few of the boats in Newport Beach still use Detroits.
That explains it. Anything having to do with marine or aviation parts or service will always cost more than the same thing at a car-parts place. And pretty much anything in Newport Beach will cost more than in Costa Mesa.
It's partly an issue of higher rents / taxes near the harbor / airport, and partly a matter of having to buy stuff for stock which they MUST have on hand, but which might not be sold for a while. The prices on everything go up to cover their out-of-pocket for stuff that has to sit.
There are a number of major oil distributors in Orange County, so let your fingers do the walking.
Quote from: Ed Hackenbruch on September 04, 2009, 02:34:58 PM
BG6, note that the first word in my post was "usually". :) I was thinking in terms of quart containers vs. gallon containers. We fulltime and don't own property anywhere, so i don't even consider anything larger than case size. ;D
Yep. I was just explaining why it would be more in this case.
You might want to figure in the risk of a spill and/or waste consuming your savings when going to the larger containers.
Lots of buses do not readily let you pour a 5 gallon pail into the engine fill.
Funnels, hoses, a step ladder and a helper make it doable.
Gallon jugs sure are easier to handle and present less risk to falling, spilling or otherwise wasting some product on all those other surfaces.
Around here, there's a deposit on the big drums, you get it back when you take the drum back.
happy coaching!
buswarrior
Hi Buswarrior,
Yes, I agree that pouring oil from large containers into engines is potentially fraught with danger - I usually get more on the outside than inside! My plan is to use a simple cheapo hand pump similar to this finely-crafted example of traditional post-Confucian Chinese liquid transfer technology: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=34679 (I heard the originals were made from bamboo and panda intestines, but the heroic socialist designers at People's Pump Factory #23 in Shanghai found a way to instead melt down priceless Tibetan artifacts and use that metal to cast the pump bodies, thus saving the workers/soldiers/peasants much money.)
John, all pumped up in overpriced Orange County