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.
Thanks. Regards possible formulation differences I didn’t take a pic of the Mobil 1 AFE 0w-8 back label on the Walmart shelf so don’t know its formulation code or date code. For grins next time I’m there I’ll do so. Note: Gokhan, I saw your posts from ~4-5 yrs ago on BITOG on Toyota Genuine Motor Oil (TGMO), guessing maybe you either are/were in a past life a chemist/tribologist? I learned stuff – never knew within XOM that Mobil 1 and TGMO are separate divisions, TGMO blended by the ExxonMobil Industrial Lubricants division, and Mobil 1 made by the Mobil 1 division, formulations can be quite different. Who knew? Regards why USA Mobil 1 AFE 0w-8 isn’t/can’t be retailed in Canada, I was just curious but suspected it ‘might’ be anything from patent blend differences (Imperial-made Mobil 1 vs. US made), or US EPA vs. Canada ECCC and/or US DoT and NHTSA vs. Transport Canada differences. Or maybe because the US Mobil 1 AFE 0w-8 is to a JASO standard, whereas both the US and Canada Mobil 1 AFE 0w-16 are to API standards, and something about a JASO spec in Canada causes an issue. IDK, not that important, it is what it is, I was just curious if anyone knew. On a side note, interesting XOM stuff on those low viscosity/low volatility synthetic oils blended for the likes of Toyota and others, never would have guessed Noack volatility wt. % that low was possible for the 0w-8 (I'm not allowed to 'link' yet but it's on the Exxonmobil chemical page, products, synthetic base stocks, making engine oils, synthetic base stock innovation page. I will continue to find it odd that a ’26 Prius bought in Bellingham WA calls for 0w-8 in the owners manual, and a ’26 Prius bought Vancouver BC calls for 0w-16.
Looks like Toyota finally switched to 0W-8 for 2026. Both(HEV & PHEV) owner manuals confirm it. As for the question, if true, I bet the Vancouver Prius has a lower VIN than the Bellingham one. Changes don't always match up with model years. It's possible the Vancouver car was built just before the switchover and the Bellingham car was built after. Or someone made a mistake and the Vancouver car actually does spec 0W-8. BTW, all this info is true for both US and Canadian cars(they use the same owners manual).
Same thing happened with Gen 4, switching from 0W-20 to 0W-16 mid-generation. 2020 was the first to switch. I doubt anything changed with the car other than the owner’s manual. I would use 0W-8 with Gen 5. If you are heavy-footed, you can benefit from 0W-16 or even 0w-20. I am light-footed to say the least.
I can't guarantee the parts catalog is completely up to date, but I'm not seeing differences in oil pump or computer part numbers. Only difference I could think of would be the software controlling the variable speed oil pump.
I doubt that. You could measure the oil pressure in a 2025 and in a 20026 with 0W-8 and compare them. Since the oil pressure is proportional to the HTHS viscosity, you would get 26% less oil pressure with 0W-8 (1.7 cP) vs. 0W-16 (2.3 cP).
Ha ha ha… My reputation follows me. I don’t post on BITOG anymore. No, I am physicist, but I was an oil enthusiast. Mobil 1 is not a company. It is a brand owned by ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil is also the majority owner of Imperial Oil of Canada. ExxonMobil makes all kinds of oils. For example, their HDEO oils are also made by their Industrial Lubricants division as the TGMO is. Here is how the date code and revision numbers look like: https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/updated-m1-fs-0w-40-more-pao.347965/page-4#post-5942503 The first three digits are the blending-plant code, and you can Google it. Chances are that Imperial Oil has a plant in Canada, blending Mobil 1 oils. The sale restriction has nothing to do with environmental or oil-spec restrictions. It is a marketing restriction by the companies. The Noack-volatility limit for all API and ILSAC oils is 15%. You can read all the specs here: Infineum Insight | API engine-oil classifications brochure Synthetic oils will have a lower Noack. The Noack will primarily be determined by the base-oil type and viscosity, and for a given base-oil type (GTL, PAO, Group II, etc.), the thinner the base oil, the lower the Noack will be. 0W-8 base oil is typically a lot thinner than the 0W-16 base oil for better fuel economy; so, it will have a lower Noack. The main caveat is not the Noack but that an oil’s wear-protection ability is directly related to its base-oil viscosity, and you will get less and less wear protection when the oil gets thinner and thinner, despite the advanced antiwear/extreme-pressure/friction-modifier additives of today. The rule of thumb is sufficient wear protection, and the OEMs decide how low it is still OK for the oil viscosity. I made a base-oil-viscosity calculator and posted it on BITOG. You can find it and plug in the oil specs and get the base-oil viscosity. (Use the standard HTHS values from the Infinemum table if you cannot find the actual values.) Some site administrator thought my calculator was not favoring one of their sponsor engine-oil companies, and that ultimately resulted in me not posting there anymore. He even hid a lot of my original research on base-oil viscosity.
The gen5 Prius and Lexus UX300h both use the same pump(15100-24020) even though the Prius was specced with 0W-16 at the start and the UX300h has been using 0W-8 since the model was introduced last year.
As long as the oil pressure is above a specified minimum, it is good. That minimum is typically much lower than what you would see even with 0W-8. Oil viscosity and therefore the oil pressure changes greatly with temperature anyway. The main concern is the base-oil viscosity, which determines the wear protection of the valvetrain and piston rings, as it determines the oil-film thickness in the boundary-lubrication and mixed-lubrication regimes, but Toyota thinks that 0W-8 provides adequate wear protection.
