Our Mission, Philosophy and Objectives

WIDMAN INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. was founded in 1996 in Santa Cruz, Bolivia with the mission of increasing the level of quality of lubricants available to the Bolivian market, increasing the life of the vehicles and the industrial equipment. Click here for our main site in Spanish.

Today WIDMAN INTERNATIONAL has distribution centers throughout Bolivia.

With the direct importation of AMERICAN lubricants from the United States, WIDMAN INTERNATIONAL S.R.L. has made available to Bolivia for the first time lubricants of the highest technology in the world. These products are far superior to those made locally or currently imported from other countries.

All of our oils are formulated with the highest quality base stocks available and the most advanced additive packages available worldwide. Almost all of our oils are either API Group II, Group IV synthetic, Group V synthetic, or a mixture of these.

Contrary to the majority of the brands in the Bolivian market, WIDMAN INTERNATIONAL does not offer inferior or obsolete products. We are guided by the API and other world agencies, presenting to the Bolivian consumer only the best possible products, eliminating the possibility of error when choosing oil for his or her vehicle or equipment.

We do not sell motor oil for gasoline engines that is less than API SL, nor diesel engine oil that is less than CI-4 (monogrades CF-2, CF-4).

Do to the high sulfur content in the Bolivian (Latin American) diesel fuel, we do not recommend a the use of CJ-4 motor oils in all diesel trucks, since they would not protect the engines against the poor quality diesel fuel in Bolivia, but we do stock if for the newer engines that require it.

For gasoline engines we only stock the latest API SN, ILSAC GF-5 motor oils. The benefit these oils show in sludge control and emissions protection make it senseless to stock anything with a lower rating.

In spite of the trends of many of our competitors to concentrate on straight SAE 40 weight, SAE 20W-50 and SAE 25W-60, we recommend staying with the recommendations in the owner's manuals. Therefore we stock 5W-20, 5W-30, 10W-30, 10W-40, 15W-40, and for well worn engines that are close to their reparations, we have 20W-50.

Our gear oil protects against the extremes of Bolivian roads with 50% to 87% more resistance to extreme pressure than the other GL-5 gear oils in the market.

Instead of giving the customer what he thinks he needs, we try to steer him to the correct product, explaining that GL-5 does not replace GL-4 in synchronized transmissions.

We also stock synthetic automatic transmission fluid for Ford, Honda, Mitsubishi, Chrysler and other brands that require special ATF, and special manual transmission fluids for all of the various cars and trucks in the country, as well as a special CVT fluid.

All of our products are manufactured in the United States in drums and pails, then shipped in sealed containers to Santa Cruz where we distribute them throughout the country. We have also set up a packaging line to package all products in quarts and gallons to insure product integrity in stores across the country. This also permits use to package small lots of products with small demand.

In October 2004 we launched the complete line of lubricants that use the American Petroleum Base Stock MAX-SYN®. This advanced base stock puts the performance of American Petroleum products way above the rest of the market, giving performance in many aspects similar to traditional synthetics.

We specialize in personal recommendations and assistance to help each customer obtain the maximum possible yield from his equipment through optimized maintenance.

Our regular customers benefit from our Used Oil Analysis program, where we identify equipment problems as they arise, making recommendations for proactive maintenance that reduces down time and increases productivity.

In January 2003, Widman International opened its own Quick Lube facility at our offices in Santa Cruz. Here we can guarantee rapid service and the best possible North American lubricants made. Every vehicle is inspected by a qualified mechanic and recommendations made for the safety and interests of the customer.

In the time that our oil change facility has been open we have found hundreds of oil filters that were either incorrect or incorrectly installed and many air filters that had been rendered useless by cleaning with high pressure air or installing incorrectly. We regularly cut open used filters to determine how well they have stood up to the rigors of the engine.

Click here and here to see the damage caused by high pressure cleaning of filters that is typical in most repair shops and oil change facilities in Bolivia.

We have cut open and studied most of the oil filters available in the market and identified serious deficiencies in many, from non-sealing valves to outright forgeries. Click here for details.

The majority of this site is in Spanish since that is the local language. Many of the tools are made available here in English. If you are looking for specific information in English, please feel free to contact us.
Calculators:

• Metric Converter - also converts viscosities between cSt, SUS, Redwood, Engler, etc.
• Mixing viscosities - Calculate the viscosity of a mixture of two oils or the percentage of any two oils to be mixed to achieve a given viscosity. Note that you should only mix oils of the same type and brand.
• Operating viscosity - Calculate the viscosity of any oil at a specific operating temperature. You can use this in combination with the previous one to mix an oil that reaches the right temperature in your gear box or compressor.
• Viscosity Index - Calculate the VI of any oil where you know the viscosity at 40 and 100, or the missing viscosity if you know the VI and viscosity at one of those temperatures.
• Graph any four oils from their data sheets.
• Calculate the air flow requirement for your engine
• Calculator for conversion of API Degrees, Specific Gravity, pounds per gallon or kilos per liter

• SAE-ISO-AGMA comparison chart
• SAE J300 Motor Oil Viscosity Chart
• SAE J306 Automotive Gear Oil Viscosity Chart
• DIN 51519 chart of ISo viscosities
• Table of API Degrees - Specific Gravity-weight per gallon or liter