The engine is the heart of the car. Over the past decade, ground-breaking advances in engine technology have boosted performance and efficiency.
Now, with tougher regulations and more demanding specifications, the focus for innovation has shifted to engine oils as the critical area where advances can be made.
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The challenge is to deliver the best performance for drivers, who still expect peak performance from their cars, while manufacturers navigate increasingly stringent legislative limits.
Every part needs to work in perfect sync to deliver ultimate performance, withstanding more pressure, higher temperatures, greater extremes, kilometre after kilometre.
Data engineered for Castrol’s ultimate performance
Countless years of engineering innovation, gathering billions of data points along the way, has enabled Castrol to identify specific factors where engine oil affects car performance and has proven that Castrol EDGE delivers Castrol’s ultimate performance* across the key factors that impact performance — factors like endurance, wear and high temperature performance.
Nowhere are these factors more important than in the context of Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) approvals.
While industry specifications define a baseline for lubricant performance — ensuring lubricants have the right performance level to protect a wide range of engines — OEM specifications typically build on these to dictate exactly how the lubricant must perform within the unique lubrication environment of a manufacturer’s engines.
For this reason, OEM specifications can be among the most stringent of all specifications.
For lubricant manufacturers, obtaining approval can be a challenging, costly, and time-consuming exercise that demands a higher performing lubricant.
The Castrol EDGE difference
Long-standing connections with many of the world’s leading OEMs have ensured Castrol stays at the forefront of technological advancements, providing direct visibility of the latest engine technology and performance requirements.
This connectivity is crucial in keeping Castrol at the cutting edge, developing lubricants that perform at the highest level by delivering optimal performance, efficiency, and protection, such that they are reviewed and approved to the stringent specifications demanded by manufacturers themselves.
Indeed, Australia’s portfolio of Castrol EDGE engine oils sees no fewer than 79 OEM approvals held across the range including from the likes of BMW, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Jaguar, and Porsche among others.
The elimination of the table supplied makes this a little empty. Could we add a line instead at the end. Examples include the MB M254 wear test to evaluate the oil’s ability to minimise wear throughout the engine, and the CEC L-109 test to evaluate the oil’s ability to resist oxidation with forced biodiesel contamination.
The Ultimate Performance Demo
While OEM benchmarks may represent the foundation of ‘ultimate performance’ in a practical sense, to bring ultimate performance to life in a unique manner, Castrol created drive-cycle conditions far more extreme than an oil would ever experience through day-to-day driving — The Ultimate Performance Demo.
Using world-renowned racing simulator Assetto Corsa, Castrol created a test drive based on a combination of the world’s most iconic racetracks and roads, selected for their ability to challenge the car engine and oil against critical performance factors.
Working together with Tickford Racing Supercars driver Thomas Randle, its Global Technology team collected the simulator data, logged in real time, on the speed, acceleration, breaking and duration of each drive.
Then, underpinned by that telemetry data, the team created a real-world drive cycle at ISP, one of the world’s leading providers of testing services, for a real car to run at their state-of-the-art facility Germany.
Running selected Castrol EDGE products – including Castrol EDGE 5W-30 LL – through this grueling demo, data gathered illustrated that Castrol EDGE products were able to consistently withstand such an extreme endurance challenge, validation that Castrol EDGE products are data engineered, motorsport-inspired and OEM approved.
Performance you can trust
While many lubricant brands are intentionally vague or ambiguous regarding the approvals held by their oils, Castrol remains black and white.
When you see a manufacturer approval on a Castrol EDGE product in your workshop, you can be sure you’ve chosen an engine oil that’s data engineered to deliver Castrol’s ultimate performance and validated by approvals from world-leading OEMs.