Multi purpose grease: the checks that decide the tin
Updated: 23 October 2026
You are in a UK shed with a squeaking hinge or a grease gun, and the lithium tins on amazon.co.uk look interchangeable. Multi purpose grease here means a simple lithium soap for bearings, pins, bushes and chassis points, sold as a 70 g tube, a 400 g pack or a box of twelve. Shelf prices in this set run from about £5.87 to about £49.95. The five rows on the [multi purpose grease comparison](/hub/diy-supplies/multi-purpose-grease) are the only products this page uses. You should leave knowing whether you need a tube, one cartridge or the box, and which claim still has to be printed on the listing. Prices and stars were read on 21 October 2026. There was no lab test. A qualifying purchase can earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
You are in a UK shed with a squeaking hinge or a grease gun, and the lithium tins on amazon.co.uk look interchangeable.
You are in a UK shed with a squeaking hinge or a grease gun, and the lithium tins on amazon.co.uk look interchangeable. Multi purpose grease here means a simple lithium soap for bearings, pins, bushes and chassis points, sold as a 70 g tube, a 400 g pack or a box of twelve. Shelf prices in this set run from about £5.87 to about £49.95. The five rows on the multi purpose grease comparison are the only products this page uses. You should leave knowing whether you need a tube, one cartridge or the box, and which claim still has to be printed on the listing. Prices and stars were read on 21 October 2026. There was no lab test. A qualifying purchase can earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Our top picks
| Badge | Product | Pack | EP claim | Working temperature | Note | Price | Offer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best overall |  Agri-Linc Agri-Linc EP2 lithium grease, box of 12 | Box of 12 | EP2 | −35°C to 120°C | 8.7 | about £49.95 | View offer |
| Alternative |  Carlube Carlube XMG070 LM2 lithium grease, 70 g | 1 tube | Non-EP LM2 | n/a | 7.7 | about £5.87 | View offer |
| Best value |  TIMCO TIMCO lithium EP2 grease, 400 g | 1 cartridge | EP2 | −30°C to 140°C | 7.8 | about £6.68 | View offer |
On this page
What you are actually buying
A lithium multi-purpose grease is oil held by a soap thickener, so it stays on a pin or in a bearing instead of running off like a thin oil. UK suppliers often sell it around NLGI 2, a buttery consistency a hand gun can pump in ordinary weather, and they add an extreme-pressure package when the tin is marked EP2. S A R Lubricants’ own lithium EP2 sheet, which is their product and not one of these five, shows what a careful label does: NLGI 2, a working range, a dropping point kept separate, and a note to purge if the old grease differs.
Tygris makes the same point about EP under high load, and warns that lithium soap is a poor choice for continuous wet duty. That warning is the limit on one grease for everything. Copper anti-seize, moly grease and a brushcutter gear lubricant stay off this table. If the manual names EP or EP2, use the EP2 grease vs non-EP page. If the gun pumps air, the load order is on how to use multi purpose grease.
Five checks before the brand
Start with the pack, because the headline price hides the fill. Carlube XMG070 is about £5.87 for 70 g. TIMCO is about £6.68, Comma is about £7.95 and Oregon is about £9.59, each for 400 g. Agri-Linc is about £49.95 for twelve 400 g cartridges, about £4.16 each if you use the box. A hinge can take the small tube. A grease gun wants 400 g. A yard that empties cartridges wants twelve. The about £5.87 line is a poor bargain once you are filling a gun.
Read the extreme-pressure claim as printed. TIMCO and Agri-Linc say EP2. Carlube says non-EP LM2. Comma and Oregon do not say EP. A missing line stays missing. NLGI is the consistency number, and it is a different word from EP2. Only Agri-Linc prints NLGI 2 on the amazon.co.uk page in this set. TIMCO’s name says EP2 and does not print NLGI. A viscosity field on that page says 5w-30, which is not a grease grade. Smith & Allan’s GC-LB and DIN 51502 lines stay on Smith & Allan’s tin.
Working temperature is the running range. A melting point sits above it. Agri-Linc prints −35°C to 120°C and a melting point of 190°C. The upper-temperature field of 190°C repeats that melting point, so it is not a running limit. TIMCO states −30°C to 140°C. Oregon states an upper rating of 120°C and no lower limit. Comma and the Carlube Amazon page give no degree figure. Water resistant is not a percentage and it is not waterproof, and none of these wordings is a jet-wash rating.
How the five listings sit on those checks
Carlube XMG070 is the 70 g non-EP tube at 4.6 from 926 reviews. Reviewers use it on hinges, a bike hub, a drill and a tow ball. It is the pack for a squeak, and the wrong pack for a morning of tractor nipples. TIMCO is one 400 g EP2 cartridge at about £6.68, made in the United Kingdom, at 4.4 from 84 reviews. It is the best value when the manual says EP and you need one gun fill. Pause if your sheet insists on seeing NLGI 2 on the retail page, because this listing does not print it.
Comma GR2400 is a 400 g tube at about £7.95 and 4.6 from 829 reviews, the largest sample on a 400 g pack here. It names chassis points, hubs, universal joints and electric motor bearings, and it does not state EP, NLGI or a temperature. Reviewers pull a plastic top off to load a gun. There is no plunger, and some reviews call the grease thin or mention a leaky cap. Oregon is a 400 g Euro cartridge at about £9.59, 5.0 from 47 reviews. A highlight says anti-seize, which is not an EP grade.
Agri-Linc is the box of twelve at about £49.95, 4.7 from 211 reviews, and the only kept listing that prints both EP2 and NLGI 2. Cartridges suit lever and pistol-grip guns of 400–500 g. One buyer said a box arrived two cartridges short, so count them. Agri-Linc’s own site has listed a similar box from about £43.60 including VAT. This comparison uses the amazon.co.uk price and words. The box is the top pick when you will use twelve cartridges.
What this grease is not
The comparison kept five lithium multi-purpose greases and left out products that only share the word grease. Copper anti-seize is a paste for threads. Moly and CV grease are built for a different contact. Stihl sells a tube it calls multipurpose grease for hedge-trimmer gearboxes, a few grams through a filler plug, and that is gear lubricant rather than a chassis cartridge. Impact-wrench grease and cork grease were removed for the same reason. Brake friction material is not a grease point.
At work, the machine manual and PUWER 1998 regulation 5 outrank a bestseller rank. HSE guidance says lubrication points should be reachable, and an HSE bulletin describes a loading-arm pivot that failed after a bearing was left dry. That is a missed-maintenance example, not a reason to pump this grease into a gearbox. TIMCO’s line that the grease is compatible with other greases does not name the other thickener. ASTM D6185 looks at dropping point and consistency before two greases are called compatible. Purge when you do not know what is already in the housing.
Common questions
Is multi purpose grease the same as EP2?
Multi purpose grease in this set is a lithium soap. EP2 means that soap also carries an extreme-pressure claim. NLGI 2 is the consistency grade when a supplier prints it. Carlube’s listing says non-EP LM2. TIMCO and Agri-Linc say EP2. Comma and Oregon do not say EP, so a similar colour does not promote them. If the manual says EP or EP2, buy a listing that says so.
Do I need a 400 g cartridge or will a small tube do?
A small tube covers a hinge, a bike hub or a light wipe on a tow ball. Carlube is 70 g at about £5.87. A grease gun that takes a Euro cartridge wants about 400 g: TIMCO, Oregon, or Comma’s tube if you will decant it. Agri-Linc is twelve cartridges. Match the fill to the nipples you will actually do, rather than to the lowest number on the search page.
What does NLGI 2 mean if the listing does not print it?
NLGI 2 is the buttery consistency a hand gun usually pumps. The letters EP2 in a name are not a substitute for NLGI 2 on the label. Only Agri-Linc prints NLGI 2 here. Where the Amazon page leaves the grade off, the grade is unstated. Smith & Allan’s GC-LB line does not fill that blank for these tins.
Is water resistant the same as waterproof?
Washout, absorption and spray-off are different NLGI tests, and none of these listings prints a percentage. Water resistant on TIMCO and Agri-Linc, and Carlube’s washout wording, are claims without a figure. Oregon’s all-weather line is vaguer. None of them is a jet-wash rating or a brake-pad grease. Lithium soap is also a weak choice for continuous wet duty, which is Tygris’s general warning, not a test of these tins.
Can I use the melting point as the hottest I can run?
Use the working range when the listing prints one. Agri-Linc’s melting point is 190°C and its working range is −35°C to 120°C. The field that says 190°C is the melting point again. TIMCO’s working top is 140°C. Oregon’s upper rating is 120°C, with no lower limit. S A R’s 185°C dropping point belongs to S A R’s grease, not to these five tins.
Why is the 70 g tube a poor bargain if I will fill a gun?
Carlube at about £5.87 is the right price for a hinge and a misleading price for a gun. Scaled towards 400 g it costs more per fill than TIMCO at about £6.68, and more than one cartridge inside Agri-Linc’s box. You also never get a cartridge that locks into the barrel. Buy the tube when the job is small. Buy the cartridge when the gun is the tool.
Related pages
Sources
Public UK sources and the amazon.co.uk listings compared on this page. Listings scored 21 October 2026. Updated 23 October 2026.
- HSE, maintenance of work equipment (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- HSE L112, PUWER (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- HSE marine loading-arm bulletin (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- HSE, CLP (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- SKF, determining grease quantities (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- Lever Engineering, lithium EP2 (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- Smith & Allan, lithium EP2 (retrieved 21 October 2026)
- Machinery Lubrication on ASTM D6185 (retrieved 21 October 2026)