A quick question for our northern friends: I was in WallyWorld today picking up my 145/90/16 mini-spare (finally arrived, waiting on rim etc from Lewis Toyota), and noticed they had Mobil 1 Advanced Fuel Economy 0w-8 (JASO GLV-1 spec) in stock on their shelves. Was aware of its existence but not that it had made it to Walmart. But then when I read the back label saw that it said "Not for Retail Sale in Canada". What's up with that?
Different government environmental standards. Canada's regulations must be just different enough that it makes financial sense to Mobil to make different blends for the two markets. I'm not saying one country's standards are better than the other; just that they're different.
The only reason is that Canada uses liters vs. quarts in the US. The same oil is sold in both countries otherwise. By the way, the four-digit formulation number for all ExxonMobil oil bottles is printed next to the date code on the back label, and you can see exactly which formulation you are getting.
Well, the specs on the product datasheets between Mobil 1 0W-16 AFE are slightly different between Canada and the US. Viscosities, pour points, flash points are all slightly different. (I didn't compare 0W-8 AFE because it doesn't seem to be available in Canada yet.) US Data Sheet: Mobil 1™ 0W-16 Canada Data Sheet: Mobil 1™ 0W-16 It also appears that oil for Canada is made by Imperial Oil, which is a separate company from ExxonMobil, though EM currently owns 69.6% of it.
It could be something so simple as they didn't wish to pursue certification of the product for the Canadian market. Canada has approximately 1/9 the population of the USA.
I worked in the oil & gas industry, and Imperial Oil has been divesting itself of its holdings for many years.
Those specs are quite different indeed. If @Probity can check the four-digit formulation code for Mobil 1 0W-16 SP in Canada, we can compare it to the US one. If the specs are correct, they are different oils.
