Hey guys, so I'll be picking some of this up this week to do an oil change. I know I've read more than a few comments on here and bobistheoilguy from people stateside wishing they had it available to them, so I'm wondering... do you think people would be interested if I offered to ship it or came to some arrangement with the esso distributor to ship it? From what I can tell motor oil is shipable since Amsoil ships their oil to Canada, should be the same situation in the reverse direction. Wondering if there's any interest.

 

Recommend you check the rules pertaining to this. AMSOIL actually has two Distribution Centers in Canada; one outside of Toronto and the other in Edmonton. Shipments to Canadian customers come from those two warehouses.

 

I have been using this oil since February 2006 and highly recommend it.

My car is not driven daily. I plan on sending a sample in to Blackstone labs in late January, which will reflect a 12-month, roughly 5,000 mile, mostly highway OCI.

I read several months ago that a bitog member (Olympic), who runs a taxi company in Saskatchewan, ran 0w30 XD3 for 40,000 kilometres and his oil analysis stated the oil was good to go. This was over the course of something like 3 months, with the vehicle scarcely being turned off.

The local price is Cdn$4.99 per litre, plus taxes. No Mobil 1 for me.

 

That's good info to know, thanks for that. I'll research a bit more and figure out how much shipping would be anyway, could end up pricey in the end.

 

I'd be more inclined to go with Amsoil over Esso XD-3. XD-3 is definitely one of the best oils on the market, but it's a heavy duty diesel oil with a really rich additive package; OCCASIONALLY diesel oils are not too friendly with the catalytic converters in regular gas-burning passenger cars over LONG periods of time. In a Maxima, Amsoil's gas engine oils will give you that level of performance without that risk (however small a risk that is).

 

I'd actually be curious to learn the specific chemistry at work there that might affect the catalytic converter, I've also been wondering the same thing about heavy duty diesel coolant...just longer lasting, or might there be ill effects on a gasoline engine. As for Amsoil I expect I will try it over the next couple years, as well as maybe german castrol, do some oil analysis'. I know for other fluids Amsoil often comes up as one of (or the) #1 choice compared with other brands.

 

All engines burn oil at least a tiny bit, so all exhaust contains at least some amount of by-products from burned oil.

All oil contains some additives to deal with certain harsh conditions in the engine. Those additives, when burned, sometimes produce by-products that can shorten the life of your catalytic converter.

That's why oils for passenger cars that are API-certified (e.g. SM, SL, etc.) are limited in the amount of those additives they can carry.

Heavy duty diesel engines are MUCH harsher on their oil, so they *need* to have a lot of those additives for protection. They also don't have to meet the same emissions standards that passenger cars do, so catalytic converter function is not important in the same way.

I can't remember the chemistry of it, but that's the issue in broad strokes.

 

On the plus side I just checked the documentation for the XD-3 and it says it's "recommended for use in gasoline engines requiring API SL, SL/CF SJ, SJ/CF, SH, SH/CF, SH/CD, or SG/CD performance categories."
That said I think I'll try Amsoil next time, haven't heard a bad word about it from anyone.