Quote:
Originally Posted by woodiewagon46
John, I'm not saying that you can or can't, but sooner or later you are going to have to. I was at my auto part's store last month to purchase conventional motor oil. There were shelves and shelves of synthetics but only one small shelf with only one brand of conventional oil. When I asked the owner of the store about it he replied that it's only a matter of time before the conventional oil won't be a viable product for him to stock.
|
I'm a little biased in that I worked for Mobil but what passes for synthetic today is not what it used to be. Synthetic used to be like Mobil 1, a non crude oil based polyalphaolefins (PAO) which are a chemically engineered synthesized basestocks. I only use Mobil 1 for modern cars and dino oil for my 41 Ford.
Mobil sued other companies calling their oil "synthetic" when it wasn't PAO but lost.
Lube oils are of a specific chemical structure, branched chain paraffins. Used to be lube base stocks came from "lube" crudes, in other words the lube oils were in the crude oil and just needed to be separated out. Lube crudes are becoming few and far between these days so the oil companies have been forced to manufacture the base stock from non lube crudes. What passes for "synthetic" these days is from crude oil. The lube cut from the crude unit is then hydrocracked to get a lube base stock. They make their lube oils sound "better" by calling them synthetic. "Synthetic" is a marketing term these days!
The difference between PAO oil and "synthetic" oil is in impurities. The PAO oils are more pure. The biggest benefit is in cold places like Alaska as the PAO oils freeze at a much lower temperature.
I've tried to make this explanation to be understood by the non engineer. Don't know if what I wrote makes sense to old Ford owners or not?