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Funny thing about synthetic oil

12K views 54 replies 17 participants last post by  Bobflyer 
#1 ·
Interesting!


The Funny Thing About Synthetic Oil

By Dirk Gibson





Synthetic oil has been touted as the cure all for engine wear. While there is little doubt that such oil provides strong benefits, are all the marketing claims to be believed? The answer is fairly surprising.

The idea of creating synthetic petroleum products was first pursued to a successful end by a surprising group - the Nazis. Germany was involved in a small war you've probably heard about from the late 1930s on. The country had deficient oil supplies and sought out alternatives. By 1944, they were producing huge swaths of synthetic fuel. During this process, Dr. Hermann Zorn started doing research on synthetic lubricants that didn't gum up. This research led to the evolution of synthetic oil as a commercial product.

In the late 1960s, Chevron launched the first synthetic oil on the consumer market. Amsoil and Mobile soon followed. The great synthetic oil movement had begun. At the time, the synthetics were clearly much better at lubricating against friction in engines. This fact soon became standard lore when discussing oils, much like the idea that you should change your oil every 3,000 miles.

The question today is whether synthetic oils are still better for your engine than standard oil, which is known as mineral oil. Surprisingly, the answer is not entirely clear. The quality of synthetic oils has not gone down over time. Instead, the quality of mineral oil products has gone up. This seems a bit odd from a business perspective. Simply put, why would a company "close the gap" on two of its products? Whatever the reason, it is clear that synthetic oil now provides minimal benefits compared to mineral oil for most cars.

The originator of this idea was Consumer Reports. It did a study comparing oils and found there was no discernible difference in wear rates between the two oils so long as the recommended oil change schedule was followed. The study received a lot of criticism regarding the testing parameters. Even if valid, the criticism doesn't change the fact the gap between synthetic and standard oil has been closed dramatically.

So, should you save money and go with standard oil over synthetic? Well, first check your owner's manual to see what is called for. If synthetic is not required, you probably don't need it unless you live in an extreme temperature like Phoenix in the summer or Minneapolis in the winter.


Dirk Gibson writes car oil articles for DCJAutoParts.com - find the best prices on high performance auto parts and accessories online.


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#45 · (Edited)
Well I'm older than most of you phuckers. I grew up in a house with a coal-burning furnace. The coal truck would come up the driveway and dump a load into the 'coal bin' a steel trap-doored room in the basement next to the furnace room. Twice (and sometimes three times) a day, you had to shovel in a few scoops of lump coal and remove the clinkers from the bottom of the furnace which, in turn, had to be carried outside to the back of the detached garage to the ash pit, a concrete block structure that kept the hot clinkers and ashes away from anything combustible.

Then, we moved into the 'modern' era of coal furnaces and got a stoker, a big steel container with an augur that fed the now chip-sized coal to the fire. It only had to be filled once every other day or so, but you still had to clean out the clinkers and take them to the ash pit. Every spring, a guy with a truck would come and shovel out the ash pit and take the clinkers and ashes to use for fill somewhere.

The furnace ducts were connected to registers in the bottom floor and heat rose naturally (if not very efficently) to 2nd-floor bedrooms via grated openings between the upper floor and lower ceiling. The chimney was right in the center of the house and there were originally flue openings for wood stoves in each room, but that was long before my life.

When I built this place back in 1990, I went all-electric, since the only alternative would have been an ugly, often-refilled, propane tank in the yard. No city gas lines out here. I also designed and built my own wood-burning stove/fireplace. It's situated right in the center of the house and is part of the structure holding the place up. The mass of masonry gets warm and radiates heat into the house long after the fire is burned out. The fire is fed with outside air so it doesn't suck the heat in the house up the pipe and make every other room in the house cold and drafty. I used to burn 2-3 cords per year, but mild winters have cut that back to less than a cord recently. I don't light a fire when it's gonna be 40 degrees or above in the daytime and a wall of southern exposure windows lets the sun take care of the heating chores on clear winter days. In the spring, the trees leave out and that side is in total shade by the time the sun gets high and hot. My highest electric bill has been less than $270, and that was in July/August air-conditioning season. 2000 (more or less) square feet and 2 zoned electric furnaces. I have a fan that blows on the plate-steel fireplace enclosure and heat comes out two ceiling registers, heating the whole place when I've got a fire going.

Spent 4 hours yesterday cutting, splitting, loading and unloading firewood. Good exercise for a guy who doesn't get much at work anymore. Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta get a couple logs off the front porch and get the fire stoked up. It's snowing like a motherfuker here and supposed to be around zero and windy tomorrow.
 
#46 ·
My next door neighbors growing up had a coal stove. I used to think that was the bee's knees, so much less work than wood. Because they were little chunks you didn't have to cut and split. Every once in awhile a truck would show up and fill the bin, and you just dump in it the stove and wa la! Heat! Deductive reasoning of a child, lol. My parents said it was expensive, which was their explanation for everything other people had/did that we didn't. I guess compared to wood, which was practically free (well, free if you don't put a price on your time anyway) anything is expensive. Regardless, this is the first time I remembered there even was such a thing as coal heat in probably twenty years. Huh.
 
#51 ·
standard oil goes in clearish light brown...comes out almost black. synthetic goes in clearish brown and comes out almost the same as it went in.
BINGO!!!

Syn oil has uniform sized molecules. The "black" we see from conventional oils is the other "miss-sized"molecules that have broken down and turn to sludge. Sludge deposits are never good for an engine, no matter what kind it is. Reducing or eliminating sludge, IMHO, is well worth the price of admission.

However, after saying that, with the draconian prices increase we are now seeing for our favorite Syn oils, $80-100 for oil changes per vehicle is rapidly moving out of my budget. After this summer Im going back to std oil.... and start changing it more often...
 
#52 ·
How long does it take to change your oil? Now, figure out what your time is worth. How much did it cost you to check your oil? Trust me, it's a lot less expensive than what you could wind up paying for.
 
#53 ·
I recently did an oil change on my bike. The oil had 20k+ miles on it. It was Kawasaki Black when came out. It had the consistency of a melted milkshake from steak n shake and no metal shavings it either. It initially was synthetic when the oil was placed in the engine. Amsoil too. It developed a leak so I kept topping it off with synthetic and conventional. This was due a turmoil time in my life. I replaced it with std conventional oil and fram oil filter. started her up and let her run for a minute at idle. Oil drained and it was black. That was expected. So far so good. Engine shows no signs of premature failure. Commence!
 
#55 ·
:admin4:Depends on your ridding. Maybe Amsoil doesn't recommend this conduct, though. Ask at BITOG Forum or we gonna have problems ...
 
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