Date:         Thu, 18 Aug 94 08:38:22 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Kendall oil ... an opinion

i got started using Kendall oil way back when ... because a porsche
mechanic (whose opinion i valued) told me how he had gotten all p.o.'d
at all the claims of the various oil/grease/etc salesmen that came by
his shop, wanting to 'set him up' with their company's products.

so he gets his wife's (soon to become ex-wife. can't imagine why) muffin-pan
and puts a different brand of oil into each little muffin-hole. cranks up the
old stove to hooooeee-it's-hot-in-here and lets it run for several hours.

he said: when he took it out (with mittens, of course), Kendall was the only
one that had NOT burnt and that was still runny and thin. so he started using
their stuff.

ok. so i'm using Castrol 30W in my old 1971 bus, and had just swapped to a
new 1980 vanagon. i'd never had any trouble at all with castrol, but i figure
what's good enough to put into 911's is certainly good enough for my car. so
i try Kendall GT-1 20W50 (his recommendation). much to my surprise, the oil
temp was quite a bit cooler on the temp gauge on the dash. like 15 degrees
CENTIGRADE. yeah, me too. i didn't believe it either. but there is was. so i
quite naturally kept using it.

then i left the big town and moved to the locality of Armpit, Alabama. guess
what? nobody sells Kendall here. :(  so back and forth to the big town i go
to get my oil. well, this gets to be really really old after a while, even
when buying four cases at a time. so when i traded for a water-boxer bus, i
changed back to Castrol, but stayed with the 20W50 weight. no problems so far
with 75,000 miles on the current bus. but no gauges either. :(  so i don't
know if it is any hotter. if any of these Bubbas would start selling Kendall,
i'd swap back. right now i just buy a case of Castrol at the local Wal-Mart
($14.00).

joel