Conventional 5W-30 No Longer Available?

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df2x4

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As per the title...

I was shopping around today for a 5qt jug of conventional 5W-30 to replace the empty one from my garage stash, and I couldn't find any from the usual brands! Walmart and O'Reillys both only had synthetic blends or full synthetic. That prompted me to do a little research and it looks like the major manufacturers are no longer producing conventional oils, at least in certain viscosities. Valvoline and Pennzoil's websites both seem to back this up. I could find some old stock on Amazon and Summit, but they were few and far between. I found some threads on other forums that seem to echo what I discovered today as well.

Am I going crazy or is this really a thing? Is conventional oil going away entirely?
 

df2x4

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yevgenievich

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I ran in to this as well earlier this year. Was looking for conventional 10w-30 and ended up just getting Rotella 15-40
 

L31MaxExpress

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I noticed this over a year ago managing an Oreilly. Actually got cussed out a couple of times by older guys over it. Had two different guys actually come back and appologize when they realized that it was no longer being made and that we offered what was being made. Oil technology has moved on and synthetic blend will not hurt a thing. If you have a flat tappet cam go with VR1 or equivalent, but that typically starts at 10w30. From memory, don't shoot me if I am off a little, but the only real difference in the viscosity glide between 5w30 and 10w30 starts around ~0°F. Once you are above near arctic temps the oils are for all practical purposes the same. Synthetics are more eco friendly and most new engines REQUIRE them. Conventional has gone the way of straight 40wt and the dodo bird. I break every roller cam engine I build in with synthetic.

My real worry is the day they stop making DexIII. The low viscosity Dex VI in our transmissions IMO is a death sentence and causes them to die an early death.
 
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kennythewelder

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I ran in to this as well earlier this year. Was looking for conventional 10w-30 and ended up just getting Rotella 15-40
Rotella 15-40, is grate oil. I ran it for a while. Had a co worker, who's dad ran it in a 5.7 L. They tore the engine down at 300,000 miles. It was clean as a whistle on the inside of the engine. No build up at all.
 

1989GMCSIERRA

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Lots of companies are going with syn-blend or synthetic oil. the typical “Dino” regular oil is going away. It’s still available here and there but I see less of it. Most cars today are W0/5-10/20/30. even the basic 15-40 diesel I usually get is hard to find. Last time i went out to TSC they had no 15-40 in 5 gallon buckets. My diesels take 15 quarts of oil
 

L31MaxExpress

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Lots of companies are going with syn-blend or synthetic oil. the typical “Dino” regular oil is going away. It’s still available here and there but I see less of it. Most cars today are W0/5-10/20/30. even the basic 15-40 diesel I usually get is hard to find. Last time i went out to TSC they had no 15-40 in 5 gallon buckets. My diesels take 15 quarts of oil
IIRC GMs little 3.0L diesel runs 0w20 Dexos along with almost every newer GM engine and alot of others like the Cummins 5.0L in the Titan and Ford 6.7L are 10w30. I think its either Honda or Toyota, forget which that specs 0w16. The 0w16 pours out like water when it is cold, especially when it has 5,000+ miles on it.
 

df2x4

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I noticed this over a year ago managing an Oreilly. Actually got cussed out a couple of times by older guys over it. Had two different guys actually come back and appologize when they realized that it was no longer being made and that we offered what was being made.

Thanks for the confirmation. What a wild thing, it surprised me for sure. Also surprised at how long it's apparently been since I last bought oil...

Oil technology has moved on and synthetic blend will not hurt a thing.

Agreed 100%, synthetics definitely seem to be a better product in general. I've read a few claims that switching to synthetics in older vehicles can increase the probability of leaks, but it seems like that's mostly BS. I ended up buying a jug of the standard Pennzoil 5W-30 synthetic blend.

Need to have a chat with my mechanic, if he's using synthetic blends now then my oil change intervals might be spacing out drastically. Should probably send a fresh round of samples into Blackstone for analysis too... No sense changing oil every 3-4K miles if I could be getting 10K+ out of it.
 
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