What to do When a Mercury Oil 55 Gallon Drum Becomes Empty

For the past couple of years my father and his friends have used a large oil drum to supply themselves with all of the boat oil that they needed. After adding the oil to their boats for the summer season, they became aware that they were at last in possession of an empty 55 gallon drum. Initially, there was a lot of debate about what to do with the empty drum.

An empty Mercury oil 55 gallon drum was not nearly as useful as a full one, so all of the men immediately claimed that disposing of the drum was not their problem. My father looked up some resources online for how to dispose of oil drums, but all of it seemed fairly complicated. Eventually, my father and his friends decided that the best thing to do with the drum was to see if they could refill it

If You Have a Place to Store It, Bulk Outboard Motor Oil is the Way To Go

Most people know that when you buy things in bulk, you tend to get a way better deal than you would buying individual items. This is why so many people have memberships at warehouse stores where they can buy food, toilet paper, and toothbrushes in bulk. Boaters should be aware that buying in bulk can help them to make certain parts of boat maintenance a little bit cheaper.

Items like boat motor oil can be expensive when you buy the amount that you need in smaller containers. When you buy bulk outboard motor oil, you can usually get a much better deal per gallon than you would in smaller containers. Of course, the main problem with buying in bulk is that you have to find some place to store all of that oil that you get a good deal on.

A Sound Solution to the Bulk Motor Oil Problem

My father is always looking for ways to save money, however he has never been particularly good with his money. This means that he just assumes that what people tell him is a good deal actually is one. If you know anything about sales people, then you know that this is not always the truth. Sometimes a deal that looks good is a really bad deal.

When one of his fishing buddies told him that bulk motor oil would save him money, he automatically just went out looking for a large amount of oil without regard to price. It took several seasons before he realized that he ought to be comparing bulk oil prices and finding a place that actually would give him a good deal on the oil that he wanted to buy.

A Mercury Oil 55 Gallon Drum for Home Oil Supply

While I might take my car in to a place that does oil changes in order to get my oil changed every few months, I don’t have to take my boat in to have the oil changed on my two-stroke outboard engine. I just have to have oil to keep the tank full and I am good to go.

To make this even more affordable, I split the cost of a Mercury oil 55 gallon drum with a couple of my friends every few years. We all use the oil during the years that we have each drum and pay proportionately for the amount of oil that we use. So far it has been a good way to save us money in the long run.

Stuck Storing Bulk Outboard Motor Oil for a Second Time

My friends and I buy motor oil in bulk, because it is far cheaper than just going and getting the amount of oil we need. We buy it together in very large quantities to get the best deal possible. Of course, this means that there is usually a lot of oil still left to store once the season has ended and the boats are stored away for the winter.

Each year we make a bet or a competition to decide who will have to store the bulk outboard motor oil for the next year. This year the bet was based around the number of gold medals that the USA would win in the Olympics. I was the one who guessed a number furthest from the truth, so I get to store the oil for the second year in a row.  It actually works out well, though, because then I have access to it anytime I want and don’t have to wait on someone else to dig it out of their garage or shed in the spring!

A Business with Bulk Motor Oil

My brother-in-law recently decided to start his own business. Since he lives close to the marina and boats have always been a big part of his life, he is starting a business repairing boat motors and doing routine maintenance on them. There aren’t any other businesses like this near the marina other than one at the marina, which charges high prices.

My brother-in-law managed to find a space to start the business that is close to the marina. It used to be a space that sold boats. He bought some bulk motor oil and got a bunch of tools. He has hired a couple of his friends to work for him. Pretty soon, he’ll be in business for the spring season, when everyone needs their boats ready to go.

A Mercury Oil 55 Gallon Drum in the Garage

When my father first moved into his new house, the house started to become a great storage space for a lot of friends and family. Since he was a single man, his friends started to bring him all of the things that their wives would not allow them to keep in their homes. His mother moved in a lot of stuff that she didn’t have room to store in her own house.

One of the things that his friends gave him was a Mercury Oil 55 gallon drum. They had bought the bulk oil as a great investment to lower oil prices. Unfortunately, when they moved to an apartment and moved their boat into storage in the marina, there was no place for them to store the drum. For now, it is waiting in my father’s garage.

Raffling Bulk Outboard Motor Oil

My grandparents used to belong to a boating club. The club would all get together and take their boats somewhere for a couple of days, usually a weekend. They were always talking about their boats and how to do the maintenance that they needed. Sometimes they had special events to raise more money for the club, such as raffles.

In one of the raffles, they raffled of a big drum of bulk outboard motor oil. The person who won the raffle ended up sharing the oil with a lot of the other members of the club. They said that they could not possibly use all of it just for their one boat. The club ended up having oil for a lot of their boats for quite a while, after that raffle.

Investing in Bulk Motor Oil

My neighbor is the type of person who is always trying to save a lot of money. He does this by buying in bulk for almost everything. He buys mayonnaise in large cases or gallon containers. He purchases his beef in huge amounts and freezes whatever he cannot use quickly. He buys almost all of the things that he uses regularly from warehouse stores.

When it comes to maintaining his car and his boat, he also wants to save money by buying in bulk. He buys bulk motor oil for his boat and gets cases of engine oil for his car as well. When he buys soap for washing his vehicles, he buys it in the large gallon containers and uses it for both. He seems to save a bit of money just with his bulk shopping habits.

Buying Bulk Outboard Motor Oil

When you think of huge drums of motor oil, you’re probably thinking of big companies leaking oil into the river or action movies where drums of oil explode. In reality drums of oil are not nearly as unstable. You can safely buy and store motor oil, without worrying that your whole garage will spontaneously go up in flame.

If you purchase bulk outboard motor oil for your boat, you can save a lot of money by buying an entire drum of oil, rather than small containers. Containers are tested prior to sale so that they do not leak. Oil can be stored for a long time in these drums without giving you any reason to worry.

Fighting Outboard Motor Build Up with Bulk Mercury Optimax Oil

Within the first year of owning our outboard motor, it started to slow down a bit. It wasn’t anything major, and it was still functioning well, but I couldn’t help but feel like we were losing a lot more performance in the first year than was typical. When I told my husband my thought, he started to notice that small shift, too, and said it was too early on for this.
His best friend from his childhood is a mechanic, which has saved us a lot of repair money for our vehicles over the years. He looked at the engine and said we had a bit of a carbon build-up and should have been buying bulk mercury Optimax oil this whole time. Luckily we caught it early on and our engine has been running much better ever since.

Deciding to Buy Bulk Motor Oil

Our family has a vacation house on a lake that we share with my grandmother’s siblings and their kids (and their kids, etc.). Over the years, we’ve gotten quite a collection of boats on our dock. Since each family wanted a different model or didn’t want this person to use their boat and the usual family stuff, we now have four boats.

With so many boats, it didn’t make too much sense to buy smaller amounts of oil. We all pitched in for one big bulk motor oil purchase. For some reason, there’s an attitude that buying oil in bulk means you’re getting lower quality oil because it costs less. It actually means you’re buying more at once and therefore paying less in the long run — aka, a much better deal.