I got curious about this product and tried looking for it at many auto stores....couldn't find it in ANY of them...except for a paticular autozone near my house...0w-30 Castrol Syntec with the back of the bottle reading Made In Germany...

So is this stuff any good? My oil change is coming up soon and was wondering if this product is worthy enough for the VQ

 

I'm using right now they (bob oil forum) say it better than m1 and amsoil.
it thicker than m1 5W-30 giving out protection and only downside they say is mpg ( I haven't notice it going down)
BTW it only available in autozone in a 0-30 from, if look under the bottle it M04 instead of M05 the oil is actually green ( they say the green is better BUT good luck finding it)

 

Yeah I skimmed through BITOG and everybody on their praise GC....even over Mobil1 (a very big player in synthetics)

They say at 100 degrees Cst the oil stays very thick (almost like a 40wt oil they say) and measures 12.1...

I wonder how badly my mpg will be effected with GC...my current oil is Torco SR1 5w-30 fully synthetic...the 100 degree Cst is at 11.16...hmm...

 

what does this M04 and M05 mean? Yeah I heard the oil is green in colour too...

 

Production date, 04 is 2004, 05 is 2005


GREAT GREAT GREAT OIL

and dont worry bout the MPG cause your engine will last forever so who cares about a little more gas $$ if you never need a new car?

 

lol...i dunno man...I am pretty concerned about mpg since I drive alot of city mileage...and city mileage does kill mpg alot quicker than highway...I am averaging 17mpg in the city and was wondering how low GC will take me?

whats the difference in production date? 04 & 05

 

I just put GC in this saturday, so I really can't say much. What I can say is the the green batches were made between some time in 02 and January 05, that's what the M0X stands for, but good luck finding it, it's pretty much gone in my area. In any case, if you want to be technical about mileage, GC does not have the "energy conserving rosette" so it ain't going to help on that mileage angle. That said, IMHO, here are more important factors that affect mileage like lead feet, tire inflation, weather, etc.

 

So production stopped in January 05? So if I go back to that autozone which carries GC, and find out it has a stamp of M05, it's not the green GC?

 

Anything past M0501 is gold. Around here it's 507, 512. GONE.

 

Nice...so quick question....If it's gold can it still be made in Germany?

Is the green superior to the gold? and if so, why?

 

I've used GC since the summer of 04, in three vehicles, my wife's Sequoia, the V-6 Camry I used to drive, and my present G35 sedan. It has produced fantastic UOA results in each. Most of them are posted over on BITOG under my screen name (ekpolk). Search and you shall see. The VQ35 really seems to like the stuff. Subjectively, it is noticeably smoother than the 5w-30 dino (Havo) I used for the first 6k miles of my G's life. I'm so impressed with the stuff that I accumulated a stash that's now "down" to only 153 quarts (no, not a typo, one hundred and fifty three quarts).

The "gold" GC is still that -- German, still says "Made in Germany" on the back. The VOAs indicate a slight change in the add pack and early UOAs look very good too, but the base oil conent is as yet unconfirmed. When I use up my supply of green (in about 4.5 years...), I will definitely consider the gold if it's still around.

Green GC is a "thick" 30 wt, some samples have come in right at the threshold between 30 and 40 wt, which is 12.5 cSt.

It's most accurate to say that the oil has a strong green sheen, vs. it actually being completely green. The only time I've seen it look entirely green is if you're pouring it from the bottle under outdoor sunlight, then it looks like an enchanting flow of liquid emerald, a tad freaky actually. If you just pour it into a clear glass and view it under indoor light, it will look mostly brown, but green around the edges. Keep in mind, of course, this is just a side show question -- the performance is what counts and in this department, GC really delivers.

 

jeez 153qts!!!! How long did it take to find all that?

Anybody done UOA of Gold German Castrol? My local autozone has 0w-30 GC but I have yet to confirm it being green or gold...if it's gold, should I still go for it anyway with an additive change?

 

There are a couple IIRC, but they mean jack since the UOAs had make ups around 50%.

I am saving my lowly case stash of green GC for winters and will likely go up to 5W40 in the summer (after seeing Nissan's viscocity recommendations for non CAFE regions). Once the GC is gone, I'm sticking w/ 5W40 (that is if I don't get a hold of a drum of XD3...).

 

Ive been looking around my area for this stuff for quite a while now, and found nothing. I did find one bottle of 5w40 with an 03 production, but that was all they had, one bottle. No one even carries a 0w30 around here.

 

I notice a few mention 5w-40....IIRC, I looked on the back of the bottles of those (or was it 5w-50?) and it said MADE IN BELGIUM...are these oils any worthy?

If so, I might be able to run on these...the owners manual states vq35's can run 40wts safely (european manuals say 50wts)..whatcha guys think?

 

i just found me some, m05 but still good stuff

 

yup, this stuff said made in belgium, and that it was for german vehicles.

 

Heh, heh, I love doing this (:wink For you doubters out there, here's the bulk of the collection (minus one case I forgot in the shed, and 12 more qts stranded in my office in New Orleans)



The 5w-40 is also known as "BC" for Belgian Castrol. All of what you see above is green, 0w-30 GC.

 

damn that picture looks awesome! man i wish I owned that many qts...I'd never have to buy oil ever again!

 

Damn, at $5 a quart, thats almost $700 worth of oil!!!

 

why did Castrol stop producing the green GC? If so many people swear by it and stash up on supply, wouldn't Castrol benefit from the extreme demand for it?

 

If I had to guess I'd say the new oil is cheaper to make. In 1997, Castrol switched their basestock on the syntec oil from a pure synthetic stock to one made from organics. Mobil threw a fit about it, but in the end, Castrol was allowed to call there oil synthetic still. There new process was much cheaper for them to make, but they still charged the same amount for it. Would not suprise me a bit if the new 'gold' GC is cheaper to make than the Green.

 

Theres Gc In New Orleans! Im Getting In My Chopper Right Now!

 

IS that all green?

 

Actually, I bought in bursts, usually when it was on sale. My average cost is a little above $4.00 per quart. Still pretty expensive anyway. . .


Yes, it is all green, newest stock is from the M04280... series.

 

Sorry, but my NOLA sub-stash is safely behind the gates of the Naval Support Activity where I'm stationed (supposedly...).

 

That could well be, given Castrol's past performance. Another possible explanation is the realignment of Castrol's line of oils in Europe. It is widely believed by Green GC followers that GC is actually nothing more than the former European "SLX" oil. It too was a green colored, German-made, 0w-30, ACEA A3 oil. It's hard to believe that Castrol would have bothered making two different such oils. I think they initially shipped the stuff to the US just so that they would not have to make the older US formula that few wanted anyway. So, when SLX and several other products got revamped, no more green to ship to us. Initial UOAs do look good for the gold, but only time will tell. Of course, I won't have to worry about this for a while. . .

 

Steve, actually, I will have to buy oil again. . . somewhere around 4.5 to 5 years from now!

My thoughts on the disappearance of green are posted above. I'm sincerely hoping that gold is one of the supposedly better "after SLX" oils.

 

what is your OCI and which cars do u use it on?

 

Steven:

I use the GC in both the vehicles my wife and I own, my 04 G35 and her 01 Sequoia. For now, I go 7500 in the G, strictly to avoid a warranty fight should the unthinkable happen. Once past 60k (I'm at almost 40k now, and will definitely "drive" out of wty vs. timing out), I will run it for at between 10k and 15k miles, depending upon how the UOAs look. My present UOA would easily support about 12k. Incidentally, I also order particle counts with my UOA and so far, my 7500 mile oil is so clean it would be acceptable as aircraft hydraulic fluid (very clean). My wife is a short tripper. I ran the last fill of GC in the Sequoia for 13 months and 10,200 miles, and the UOA indicated a good bit of life left. I'm planning to stay with about a one year OCI on this vehicle. This is not really very aggressive, as the 2UZ-FE V-8 is probably the most oil-friendly engine on the planet. It's UOAs are almost always fantastic. Subjectively, the oil in it now (~five months old) is just becoming visible on the dipstick -- it's still that clean looking. Wish my G did that... :wink:

 

No GC for me, but I'm going to dip into my stash of Esso Extra, XD3, 0w30, in a couple of months or so once I'm through my AutoRX rinse phase. I've never used synthetic oil before - Castrol GTX 5w30 dino oil about 2/3 of the time thus far.

 

I went to a autozone in another city today looking for some GC. They didn't have anything older than M0501. I talked to the manager to see if they had anything older, and he said a guy who owned a porshe had come in and purchased 10 cases 7 or 8 months ago, and had gone to every location in Western WA and cleaned them out. Bastard.

 

Come on up and get some Esso Extra XD3, ow30, PAO full synthetic. I can't imagine that GC is head and shoulders better from what I've gleaned on BITOG, plus its only about Cdn$5/litre including tax.

 

I just saw some 0-30 GC at autozone near me?

 

make sure the code is below M0501xxxx .....its located under the bottle...if it's after that, then you've found Gold GC

 

You know, Ive read that over at BITOG, but I found some M0501xxxx that was gold...

 

Nah. It's gold appearing under poor lighting. Put it under a bright light and it would show green. Search for the pics in BITOG.

 

I just got some Gold GC made after May 2005. Plan to use it on my 97 Cima with 128k miles. It suppose to better than Green GC. I believe 0W-30 GC is thicker at high temp (280 deg F) than 10W-30 while thinner at -40 deg F. For high compression high mileage Cima, I feel more pretection. I plan to go 10K IOC for extensive travel and 8K for mixed travel. In summer, I would use GTX or any brand name dino with 5K IOC.

 

Why bother switching back and forth between GC and GTX?

 

You basis for this statement?

I've seen only a handful of UOA on gold GC. They look pretty solid so far, but we simply don't have anywhere near the data regarding gold that we do for the green. In addition, until I get some confirmation of the base oil composition used in the gold, I'm reserving judgment (we've had some basic tests that seem to indicate that it's not G-III, but frankly, I just don't trust Castrol enough to make assumptions. I'm quite comfortable with the base oil composition of the green stuff. Only time will tell if gold is up to (or maybe better) than green.