What's new

Oil ? You get what you pay for!

oilman

Trader
Joined
12 October 2006
Messages
385
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Uk
Website
www.opieoils.co.uk
Costs of synthetics vary considerably. The most expensive are the ?Ester? types originally only used in jet engines. These cost 6 to 10 times more than high quality mineral oils.

The cheapest synthetics are not really synthetic at all, they are dug out of the ground and not manmade. These are in fact specially refined light viscosity mineral oils known as ?hydrocracked? oils.

?Hydrocracked? oils have some advantages over their equivalent mineral oils, particularly in lower viscosity motor oils such as 5w-30 and 5w-40 and they cost about 1.5 times more than good quality mineral fractions. This is the ?synthetic? which is always used in cheap oils that are labelled ?synthetic?.

So, why are these special mineral oils called ?synthetic??

Well, it all came about from a legal battle that took place in the USA more than ten years ago. Sound reasons (including evidence from a Nobel Prize winning chemist) were disregarded and the final ruling was that certain mineral bases that had undergone extra chemical treatments could be called ?synthetic?.

Needless to say, the marketing executives wet their knickers with pure delight! They realised that this meant, and still does, that the critical buzz-word ?synthetic? could be printed on a can of cheap oil provided that the contents included some ?hydrocracked? mineral oil, at a cost of quite literally a few pence.

So, the chemistry of ?synthetics? is complex and so is the politics. The economics are very simple though.

If you like the look of a smart well-marketed can with ?synthetic? printed on it, fair enough, it will not cost you a lot; and now you know why this is the case, it?s really only a highly processed mineral oil.

But, if you drive a high performance or modified car, and you intend to keep it for several years, and maybe do the odd ?track day? or ?1/4 mile?, then you need a genuine Ester/PAO (Poly Alpha Olefin) synthetic oil.

These oils cost more money to buy, because they cost a lot more money to make.

Very simply, you always get what you pay for, cheap oils contain cheap ingredients, what did you expect!
 
Joined
13 November 2006
Messages
429
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Swindon, UK
Can't agree more. That's why i've just put some Silkolene Pro S in mine :) Running sweet. Of course from Opie ;)
 

Nicely

Moving on...
Founder of S15OC
Joined
26 October 2005
Messages
8,000
Reaction score
2
Points
38
Location
Helsinki, Finland
Website
www.jull.net
Country
Surely all synthetics have to conform to the international standards printed on the labels...?

e.g. API SL CF ACEA A3 B3 B4
 
Top