Living With dexos

by Garrett McKinnon

My wife just bought a new car. Needed something with minivan room but without the minivan cachet (or lack thereof!) to haul around kids, dogs, my in-laws (who are not dogs), etc. She also wanted something with four-wheel or all-wheel drive. Doesn’t snow much in our neck of the woods, but when it does she enjoys the security of knowing she has four wheels securely on the pavement. Plus, we take an annual Christmas vacation to the mountains of New Mexico, where there is occasionally plenty of snow. Driving up a dirt-and-gravel road to get to the cabin can be challenging when it’s dry, much less when there is two feet of snow on the ground.

So what did she choose? A 2011 GMC Acadia. Big SUV, but it drives and rides smoother than other truck-based SUVs we tried out. Plus, the gas mileage is a little bit better. We’re going through the owners manual the other day to learn what all the buttons do when I stumble across the motor oil page. My wife, who I suspect is like most wives, really couldn’t give a rip about what type of motor oil her new car calls for, but I was intrigued, especially when I saw the distinctive dexos logo and read the words, “Your vehicle was filled at the factory with dexos approved engine oil.”

Yep. The missus bought a car that uses the dreaded dexos motor oil. I read a little further: “Use and ask for engine oils with the dexos certification mark. Oils meeting the requirements of your vehicle should have the dexos certification mark on the container. This certification mark indicates that the oil has been approved to the dexos specification.”

GM doesn’t stop there, though. There’s a caveat to this requirement — “Notice: Use only engine oil that is approved to the dexos specification or an equivalent engine oil of the appropriate viscosity grade…failure to use the recommended engine oil or equivalent can result in engine damage not covered by the vehicle warranty.” Emphasis is mine.

So what does this mean? I’m guessing GM knows it can’t absolutely require dexos-licensed motor oil without supplying the product for free, a requirement of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Hence the “or equivalent” verbiage. In essence, what GM is saying is that as long as the motor oil meets the dexos specification, it doesn’t necessarily have to be licensed in order to be used. Now I’m guessing my local GM dealer would argue that point vehemently if I insisted on installing a non-licensed product that still met dexos specifications (ala Valvoline’s expected dexos product). But as long as I stick with a company that backs its products, I’ll feel safe even if I choose to have the local lube shop install a non-licensed product.

And what type of product will that be? The dexos-spec products announced so far all have one thing in common — they’re synthetic. Just as we’d predicted all along they would be. Fortunately, my wife was nonplussed (in the cool and collected sense) when I told her that her new car will require synthetic motor oil. Why? Because of the little oil life remaining message on the instrument panel. She’s only put a few hundred miles on the Acadia so far, but based on the mileage and oil life remaining, she should be due for an oil change every 5,000-6,000 miles or so, which for her means oil changes twice per year. She’s pretty good at math, so she knew in a moment that the difference between three or four regular oil changes each year at $35 a pop and two oil changes using a dexos synthetic at probably $75 a pop isn’t going to be that big an adjustment. Plus, it’s one fewer day she has to take time out of her schedule to get an oil change (my kids will be crushed, though; they love going to the “car store” and watching the lube techs swarm the car).

In the end, dexos is something that she, as a consumer, can learn to live with. I suspect, too, that it’s something the lube industry will learn to live with, as well.

GARRETT MCKINNON is editor of National Oil & Lube News and is occasionally even allowed to drive his wife’s new car. Questions, comments, concerns? E-mail him: garrett.mckinnon@noln.net