Nick Read

Just bought my 98 WRX wagon and needed to get some oil for it, (after draining a load out to cure my clogged boost solenoid problem) so after a good nose around on the threads here, decided to stick with the previous owner's choice - Castrol Formula RS 10w-60.

Spent ages looking around on the net for somewhere who can supply it cheap, but once you factor in the postage, it seems that every online supplier comes out dearer than places like Halfords, unless you buy dozens of litres at a time. Rip-off Britain rears its ugly head again and I can't bear to pay £35 odd for 4 litres of synthetic oil. £20-£25 I'd be happy with.

So did an eBay search including Europe and to my surprise, up comes a German oil supplier doing monster FIVE litre bottles of Castrol RS (aren't the UK bottles a measly 4 litres? - i.e. just less than the total fill on any modern car LOL). And not only are they 5 L instead of 4 L, they are only EUR31 per bottle. Even the carriage (EUR 20) to Britain is middling in price compared to these rip-off merchants over here who want to charge me £8-£12 to send a bottle of oil.

All up it's cost me £60 for 10 litres of Castrol synthetic so I'm pretty pleased. Of course, it may be that it doesn't turn up for a week, if at all so I'll report back when it arrives.

But the moral of the story is, try looking abroad for cheap oil. There doesn't seem to be any advantage in buying in the UK, internet sellers seem just as expensive as the shops once you account for delivery as well. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong if you know of anywhere in the UK that regularly sells 4-5l bottles of well-known branded fully synthetic for £20 rather than £35, and doesn't charge £10 for delivery?

rb5_336

This is the best company I have used http://www.opieoils.co.uk/lubricants.htm. He is a regular on many forums, here is the price he was offering over at PSOOC recently:

Castrol RS 10w-60 4litres £27.50

He also attends regular car shows and allow collection etc

Sean

CLSII

Pity you cant import petrol.....its only 0.89 Euros per litre in Spain after big rises....better value than duty free wine .

grpbrallyfan

iTrader: (1)

You could import fuel from spain, stick it in a homemade gin bottle with 80% proof written on it, its the customs fault if they drink it

James

Nick Read

Yes that's probably worth getting if you can avoid delivery charges...

My oil's just arrived from Germany today, so pretty quick delivery...10 litres of Castrol Formula RS 10W-60 at a cost of EUR84 including postage = £58 all up, £5.80 a litre. That's cheap in anyone's book. I'd say the only hassle is having to do the whole deal in German; wasn't a problem putting it all into a translator website and getting it translated into pidgin English! Plus they take Paypal, handy for eBayers. All in all, a very good experience and it would have been even cheaper if I'd ordered more, as the postage stays the same up to 40 litres I think.

Reality

The German page didn't have "Scheißeöl" anywhere did it .


The only problem with supporting the German economy versus the British one is that you'll push up UK prices even further .

They will find a way of continuing to rip us all off !

Focusbird

I bought 2 bottles of Mobil 1 Motorsport 15W 50 at a show at Silverstone on sunday for £20 for a 4L bottle.

It's usually something like £37.99 in Halfords!!

oilman

iTrader: (9)

If it was Ford Fair, it was probably from me

Cheers
Simon

PS. See you at Rallyday on Sunday for more bargains!

Focusbird

LOL No idea what stand it was hun, but I saw some for sale at the RSOC regional day at Santa Pod earlier in the year and was kicking myself I hadn't bought any there for £20 a bottle when I came to change my oil

Nick Read

LOL yeah just like I feel bad for all the big record shops who've been trying to charge us £15 for a CD all these years, and now I can get them online for less than a tenner. For decades we've been buying what should have been cheap products imported from the US, then the UK wholesaler covered their costs (and then some) by simply changing the dollar sign for pounds. I don't lose any sleep buying stuff directly from the US myself and taking advantage of the dirt cheap prices once I convert the dollars to pounds myself without any middle man taking his cut. Look on iTunes - mp3 downloads in the UK are £0.79 - yet in Europe they are EUR 0.79... so a third cheaper. Oh, must be that it costs that much more to download data to the UK than to, say, France. Bollocks.

Rip-off Britain didn't happen by itself. We, as a nation, DESERVE to be ripped-off because we are the only people in the world who will put up with it, and not complain. I support British business but I'm not going to apologise for getting identical products cheaper elsewhere. I pay enough PAYE, national insurance, fuel tax, road tax, council tax already and I'll be damned if I pay any more VAT than I need to LOL All IMHO of course :-)

Nick Read

Oh and BTW if I ever see 4l bottles of Castrol RS 10w-60 at £20 a pop I'll buy the lot. Problem is I live in the middle of nowhere where it's hard enough to even FIND the stuff, and when you can it's a tenner for a 1l bottle and £37 for 4!

julian N/W wrx my93

but thats for 4litres not 5?????

and then you have p&p on top of that.........

so he got 10litres delivered for a couple of quid more than 8 before p&p????

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I've always been tempted to grab a few bottles of Mobil one 5w-50 whilst in Carrefour, as :

a)You can't buy it in the UK (only 0w-40 or 15w-50 which isn't as ideal for modded or hard driven pre99 classics or cold weather and short journeys, respectively)
b)Is an ideal grade for keeping good cold start protection whilst maintaining good hot temp stability when driven hard/modded
c)Costs less in euros than the nearest grade of mobil that is available in the UK that being 15w-50, which I prefer not to use. (€30 vs £35 )

oilman

iTrader: (9)

Joining the Euro should make life interesting if the politicians ever get round to it!

Cheers
Simon

GC8

It'd be naive to expect that mainland Euro prices would replace our current Sterling prices; wouldn't it?

Nick Read

Exactly. It's a win-win situation..more oil, less money. It's not even as if it took ages to deliver. I ordered on a Friday or Saturday, the stuff arrived Tuesday, with a load of Castrol F1 stickers and a Castrol F1 bottle opener. And a load of German receipts/flyers etc which I couldn't understand a word of, but who cares? What more can you ask for LOL