Valvoline's 300,000 mile guarantee.
 

So, unless you live under a rock, you have probably noticed an advertisement for a 300,000 mile warranty coverage from Valvoline (just a ploy to sell more oil?). I thought this was interesting and did a little digging.

The premise is that, if you use their full synthetic oil and change a regular intervals, they will give you a full warranty on lubricated parts in your engine for 300,000 miles. For our cars, that pretty much means everything but the water pump and coils/sparkplugs (I know there's more than this...don't flame me).

On their website, they detail the eligibility requirements. They are basically:

1. Your vehicle must have fewer than 75,000 miles

2. You must change your oil every 3,000 miles and document it online and keep reciepts.

3. Your vehicle cannot be used for competition. (How they'd prove this is beyond me)

4. Your engine and vehicle cannot be modified with non-factory parts.

There are more, but this is just a basic list.

The last one bothered me a little, so I decided to ask exactly what this meant. I asked whether rotary engines were covered (yes). I also asked about aftermarket airfilters (K&N), aftermarket exhaust, et cetera, and their reply was that ANY part that is not factory would void this warranty.

What this told me is that this is just a scam to sell more oil. Basically, the language could be interpreted, at their discretion, to mean that any part like air filters, oil filters, tires, etc. MUST be from Mazda in order to keep this coverage. I personally believe that this language will be used in the future to weasel their way out of paying up if an engine fails before 300,000 miles.

Worth it? Not for me!

I honestly have not heard of this yet because I havent had tv for 3 months now :/.

the idea is intriguing however I dont see them actually following through with any of it if something does happen to the engine before 300000

I'm guessing your right.. "There's no such thing as a free lunch" Somebody always pays in the end.

Valvoline oils are junk.

and the money I spend on these garbage can probably buy me couple new engines so no thanks I'll pass.

I doubt anyone will ever collect on this warranty.

We need to get someone with a stock 4 cyl vehicle, have them get covered by this and then have them live in redline. If he can prove he wasnt racing, just didnt see the need to shift, maybe we could use the words to weasel a replacement out of them. I'm sure this WILL happen, it will just take time. I think I see a lawsuit coming :)

Gentlemen, Gentlemen, hold up a second.

Don't immediately say "no one will ever collect on this" blah blah. This offer makes perfect business sense. If a fair number of people sign up for this and commit to using only valvoline oil for (essentially) the lifetime of their car, they are going to sell a LOT more oil. And make a lot more money than they will be paying out for engines.

Yes- they have to constrain the rules so that it's only an ENGINE failure attributable to oil-related problems.

Yes - they have to limit it to cars that don't have aftermarket parts, if only for consistency and so THEY don't get abused in this offer.

It's nothing magic and I'm not saying it's for rx8ers, but this would be a good "insurance" deal for a lot of people, don't immediately bash it.

Gotta agree with that. No need to bash. I doubt if Valvoline will have to pay for many (or possibly any) engines because if you change oil every 3K your engine will not fail from lack of lubrication. IMHO, someone who follows this program will benefit because it will put them on a solid regimen of oil changes.

People are likely to fall off it - 300,000 miles is a long time. I remember Quaker State having a similar program. A friend was following it. He brought his car to a shop for some random repair, and they threw in a free oil change - with a different brand. So much for that.

Ken

My girlfriend's Saturn is bone stock, all factory parts, and 35,000 miles. So I could throw this stuff in there, but like stated before, not many engines fail due to oil related issues, especially when that oil is changed with a good synthetic and at regular intervals.

Yeah, this was not meant to bash the company. It does make good business sense, and I'm sure that the average Joe could get something done. However, I can foresee some people getting hurt if they decide to use the language against them for the littlest thing.


And again...not for me.

But this warranty thing is just stupid

pretty much saying like :

Buy our vitamin C product every 2 months for 10 years ! if you ever gets sick due to lack of vitamin C, we will cover your medical bills !

yeah i would really doubt if they would cover it somehow they would find something to void it

Valvoline: Sorry, this is not covered under the 300,000 mile guarantee
Customer: WHY?!?!?!?
Valvoline: We don't fix stupid.

Why is everyone assuming that Valvoline would weasel out of claims? When is the last time you heard of an engine failing because of lubrication problems? The last I heard of was my brother's Toyota, which blew at about 70K because he never changed the oil.

I just doubt that they'll ever get any claims. They're making a bet that's almost as safe as betting against an elephant stampede in Antarctica.

Ken

Im not doubting them. Its just the 1000000000000000000000000000:1 odds that make it funny. They will get ALOT of claims, just not valid ones.

Buy JMC tires. We have a *100,000 mile gaurantee that the tires will not need to be replaced for 100,000 miles due to road salt corrosion.

*Normal wear/tear, abuse, misaligned, non-balanced, racing, over or under inflation, custom valve stem caps, and non stock rims are not covered and/or void this gaurantee.

ROFL ! LOL !

because this is nothing but a marketing gimmick.

plus if someone's engine "does" fail due to lubrication problem(which is close to impossible to tell anyway), that means their oil is not doing what it suppose to do. which makes them look bad.

so of course they gonna find some bullshit to deny the claim.

maybe someone who travels around the country a lot can try this.

^yeah i rack up some miles but damnnot that many! haha.....maybe we all should get our 8's together and go on a 300k miles cruise......see what happens!!! haha...but then again that's 178.5 days of drivng going a steady 70mph.....but i'll do it for science if someone else is going with!

Um...yeah.

I think that if someone's engine does fail, not only will Valvoline pay the claim, but they'd probably buy the engine so they could dissect it and see what went wrong. Their analysis would then lead to improvements so they can better serve their customers.

They have our best interests at heart.

Ken

I hope you are being VERY sarcastic.

They're an oil company. Who else could they be looking out for? ;)

Ken

Exactly. If one stops to think about it, it's clear that they can only make that claim because just about any rated oil used with vigilant maintenance schedule, will prevent lubrication failure. Engine failures are typically either manufacturing defect, abuse, or lack of maintenance. So really their guarantee which is meant to make us think their oil is remarkable, should really simply drive home the point that it's NOT! Lol.

Ok folks, I went to the Valvoline site and read the fine print.

The biggest caveat to this whole warranty is as follows:

1) You must change oil every 3000 miles.

2) This is fine if you're running their standard dino oil, but if you do that, you are only covered up to 150,000 miles.

3) If you run their MaxLife synthetic blend, you are covered to 225,000 miles.

4) If you run their full synthetic, you get the 300,000 mile coverage.


Now, if you apply logic, we know:

A) Synthetics don't need to be changed every 3000 miles (unless you are anal)... more like 5000 or 7500 miles.

B) Synthetics cost considerably more than dino oil.


So, if you do the math, you'll see that you'd be paying quite the premium by using synthetic and changing it every 3000 miles. That's going to roughly double the average cost of oil and oil changes for the average driver.

Taking this one step further, you aren't supposed to run synthetic in the Renesis. I would be very interesting to see what would happen if the following happened:

1) You use synthetic in your 8 and change every 3000 miles

2) Your engine fails between 100000 and 300000 miles

3) You try to file a claim


Why? Because Mazda says NOT to use synthetic in the engine. I wonder what Valvoline would say if they received a claim. My bet is that they would use the "you violated the manufacturer warranty so you aren't covered" excuse.

They may even try pulling the same stunt with the dino oil if you use anything other than the Mazda recommended 5w20.

As an RX owner, this deal sounds like it's more trouble than it's worth. Meanwhile, Valvoline is raking in the cash.

Anything that would void YOUR SPECIFIC mfg waaranty will void your Valvoline warranty. Thats why there are different levels available. If they only offered the XXX mile gaurantee on one type of oil then you could make a fight. Since they offer XXX mile warranty on dino oils as well, they will say that it is up to the owner to know what type of oil their car needs.

Also, I am willing to be that this gaurantee is for conventional engines only. I am sure they thought of the worst case scenario's of rednecks bringing in their lawnmowers that have valvoline synthetic in them.

I had an amusing correspondence with Valvoline on that topic. Last year, in a moment of boredom, I followed the "what oil for you" link on their web site. The result was their synthetic. I e-mailed and asked how could they recommend that, since Mazda says no synthetic. Their reply was that Mazda recommends 5w20, and all 5w20s contain synthetic stock.

Ken

^i have also heard that before! but i use 5w30 anyway