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Comments
I think this is where it gets a bit fuzzy. If Mobil One is an example of mass produced and mass available synthetic oil and say Redline is an example of "boutique" or limited edition synthetic, I can think of any number of things that would price the Redline higher than the Mobil One. But on that note Mobil One could actually price its product higher than Redline, although in my humble opinion, that would not be smart.
Amsoil and Red Line are in a different quantum level. Diester and polyol ester-- Accept no substitute.
I have never seen one performed (not a one company, ever) over 10 years with commuting traffic, short starts, trips under 10 miles etc.. Why, well, obviously it would take ten years and a company cannot market the product until the testintg is done. In fact, I am hoping that mine will be a test case and when I get to 200,000 I will ask Amsoil to tear mine down at their cost and take measurements. I currently have 135,000 miles on a 92 with oil and filters at 7,500 mile intervals not 15,000.
So even the Mobil 1 test is not real life
But, some time ago they supposedly switched to a PAO - based blend.
OK, for all you chemists out there, let me get something straight. Are you saying the the resulting oils from liquefying ethylene gas (making PAO) and heavily hydrocracking mineral oils is the same thing?
I read the charts on Redline's site and they show PAO and mineral stocks behaving very differently ... especially at very high temps. The mineral oil boils off while the PAO formed a hard deposit. If they are so closely related, this doesn't make sense.
Why wouldn't the PAO merely boil off as well?
Are you saying there's no difference in the coefficient of friction between PAO synthetics and conventional oils? This is something else that doesn't seem right to me judging from my experiences.
--- Bror Jace
If esters are going down, and PAO's are the biggie, then I am way out of date and need to shut up. I recall that a big part of my initial attraction to ester based lubricants was the fact that the raw materials came from farm crops-- a totally renewable resource.
Later,
Al
The oil was so expensive, I needed the psychological boost of the funnel use!
I still have a couple and I'll give that a try!!
--- Bror Jace
Heat is the number one killer of oil, and this is where synths have a great advantage whether they are PAO or ester. A synthetic lubricant has approximately a 10% better heat transfer ability than petroleum-based lubricants. Together with faster flow, as well as the faster heat transfer seen in a sludge-free engine, it enables the lubricant to remove significantly more heat from hot engine surfaces. This will lower the demands on the cooling system as well.
I once read somewhere an opinion that if you put enough additives into a dino, you may effectively reach PAO-level protection. The irony pointed out though, is that by adding this level of additives, the price of the dino would be greater than PAO.
A good example: A Dodge Van, slant six, automatic. I used it for 12 years of heavy towing in a combination of freeway and country roads. It was a heavy user of oil from the start so I never had reason to change the oil. I installed a new filter from time to time, when the texture became unacceptable, even to me. I used which ever oil was closest to the gas pump as long as it did not cost over $1.50. If a safeway store happened to be near by, I would get a gallon in the big red can. It was rated RP ... Re-Processed, for those of you not well informed. I usually had to add oil with each fill up since the thing had one of those damned 36 gallon tanks. Very hard on a guys kidneys.
In the interest of keeping things short here, I drove that truck for 145,000 miles, never had to spend a dime on the power train, my usual experience, and sold it to a guy who worked for me. He drove it for another three years before selling it to another chap, further down the drive train. I saw it around town for another year or so before it finally vanished.
Why do I have such good luck, flying in the face of logic? I keep my speed down below 60 mph on level ground and climb hills at a snails pace. More important than the oil is operating the machine within its design parameters.
This is a true story. I was that soldier.
BTW Mobil 1 has improved their site. There is decent information there especially for those who are interested in the basics of syn.
http://mobil1.com/
also found this statement-its always good for a spirited debate.:
There's not a shred of evidence to suggest that synthetic motor oils delay or prevent piston ring break-in. Maxwell speculates that the rumor got started when synthetics first came to market, and attributes it to the psyche of consumers using the new product for the first time. Remember, back in the mid-'70s conventional oil sold for about 69 cents a can. Synthetics, on the other hand, came in at a hefty 4 bucks a pop. To justify spending so much more, consumers frequently checked the oil level of their new vehicles as if expecting to see some sort of miraculous benefit. What they found instead was a crankcase down a quart of oil, which they attributed to the synthetic. In reality, losing a quart of oil during break-in was standard fare on engines of this era, regardless of the type of oil used. Unfortunately, synthetics got the blame. And they're still trying to live it down.
Today, Mobil 1 is the factory fill for many carmakers
Maxwell is the Project manager for Mobil 1 Synthetics division.
NOw that slant 6 that belonged to Julus probably could never seat its rings due to the texture in the oil backing the rings off the walls...
I purchased this article at this link - $10- not really sure it was worth it -16 pages.
The testing involves mostly Mobil 1 oils
It deals with extended drain intervals.
Some highlights:
1. Ran two 25K cycles without filter or oil change. After 50K, wear was mostly within specs for new parts, cleanliness was excellent. In short all was well.
2. Ran 5 year "Aunt Millie Test" with no oil change or filter change. There was replacement of oil due to sampling. Oil samples came out good.
3. They gave some clarification of previous test where oil was changed every 15K for both syn and conventional oil. They said there was "significantly" more wear with conventional oil.
4. They have an oil (used only in Europe bc they like 40 wt. there). This is the first oil in the world (in 1998) to meet "all" performance and economy tests for diesel and gasoline engines. ILSAC, ACEA, and API. Damn- we can’t get it here.
5. Oil thickening is the major bug-a-bo with extended oil drain intervals. The bench mark for lubricating oils in the API Sequence IIIE test which runs 64 hours. Oils must pass this with a viscosity increase of no more than 375% increase. Conventional oils drope dead a few hours after the test. They had two "premium" competitors synthetics (PAO) in this test and one failed open at 100 hrs and the other at 128 hours. Both Mobil oils showed very little increase and one went to 256 hrs. For some reason they stopped the test. The other was stopped at 128 because it was at the limit of piston cleanliness.
I would Like to see Red Line run the Sequence IIIE test. at double, triple and quadruple lengths. I doubt they will. Come to think of it- I’ll ask ‘em.
Overall a good article.
I found a similar blurb on the Mobil 1 website:
"The Sequence IIIE test uses a GM 3.8-liter engine that is run for 64 hours with an oil sump temperature of 300° F. The test is used to measure cam and lifter wear, deposits and oil stability. The Sequence VE test uses a 2.3-liter Ford engine and is run at fairly low oil temperatures to measure sludging and cam wear performance. This test is run for 288 hours.
Mobil 1 was evaluated at four times the normal test length (256 hours) in a Sequence IIIE test and two times the normal length (576 hours) in a Sequence VE test. Even after this brutal trial, Mobil 1 still met all wear, viscosity and deposit limit levels for the standard test duration!"
Interesting that the engine choice for IIIE was 3.8L GM which is known to be a solid engine. I wonder what would happen with a "weaker" engine?
Mobil 1 will leak out of the seals of older cars.
Mobil 1 is fully compatible with the elastomeric seals and gasket materials used in most modern engines. In engines that are in good condition, seal compatibility will not be a problem. Some older engines produced before the mid-1970s were manufactured with looser tolerances than today's engines. Low-viscosity grades of oil can leak from these engines. The solution is to use a higher-viscosity grade like Mobil 1 15W-50 to reduce this leakage.
And another quotes from Motor magazine. (Mobile1 site -- what experts say -- news)
The claims that synthetic oils leak past main seals and delay or prevent ring break-in have been around ever since the stuff came to market in the mid-'70s. With regard to seal leakage, there was some merit to the accusation. Engines of the era weren't exactly built to the strictest tolerances. So engineers designed main oil seals that would swell when they came into contact with conventional oils. This swelling would, in effect, seal off large gaps and prevent leakage. The problem with pure polyalphaolefin is that it causes seal shrinkage – hence the leaks. Mobil chemists recognized this very early on in Mobil 1's life and, as a result, added an ester in with the polyalphaolefin. The ester behaved like conventional oil, causing seal swelling, without affecting the polyal-phaolefin's superior lubricating properties.
The ester molecules are so good, even dumping PAO into the pot can't stop the magic. I don't believe that the original Mobil 1 was anything to write home about until they added the esters. They apparently don't see it that way!
On the other hand an individual that had some reasonable amount of intelligence (I'm not saying folks who don't use syn are not intelligent) and an open mind would need to spend an hour with the article (possibly less) and probably would consider switching. I could be wrong since I am so pro-syn.
email me -
adc100@yahoo.com
I think all of who post here in addition to helping new people with facts need to start digging deeper for more facts/information there is some staleness here-including me.
Polyalphaolefins (PAOs) are produced via free radical, Ziegler catalysed, Friedel-Crafts catalysed, and other polymerization methods. Free radical methods are used less than the others and require a high activation energy while only yielding low amounts with typically poor quality. The Zeigler catalysation method is based on triethylaluminium/titanium tetrachloride and has a tendency to give a broad MW distribution. Friedel-Crafts catalyzed methods with aluminum trichloride provide wide MW distributions. They can however, be controlled using Lewis bases. The use of BF3 allows better control of degree of polymerization, however this advantage must be weighed against the inability to recycle the catalyst. Other methods involve use of chromium on silica gel catalyst and shape selective metallosilicates.
Synthetic esters which are basically organic compounds that are formed by combining an acid with an alcohol and eliminating water, are a diverse group of compounds with many properties that can be precisely engineered to meet specific needs. Aliphatic diesters and polyol esters are two main catergories of synthetic ester lubricants. Lower volatility and increased flash points are results of the increased bonding forces from strong dipole moments or London forces. The presence of the ester group also affects biodegradability, lubricity, solvency, hydrolytic and thermal stability. An in depth discussion of control of these properties is given by Mortier and Orszulik (Chemistry and Technology of Lubricants,
11, pp. 41-50).
Solvency of ester base lubricants is an advantage as they are compatible with most mineral oil additives. Compatibility with other lubricants gives esters another major advantage. Improved performance at lower cost is thus possible using blends of the esters and mineral oils to form semi-synthetic oils. Ford's Polimotor has a virtually all-plastic engine that offers a 60% savings in weight over conventional components and uses polyamide-imide for moving parts with fuel savings advantages (14). Here, elastomeric compatibility of ester base stocks must be considered. Swelling is controlled by using larger molecules with more branching . Closeness in solubility, the 'like-dissolves-like' rule, governs swelling as does the ester's polarity index. These features are particularly important for elastomers which are sensitive to polar ester lubricants. Elastomers tend to harden and shrink when exposed to non-polar base stocks such as PAOs and thus a balance may be achieved by mixing with the ester stock to obtain elastomerically neutral lubricants. Finally, optimum ester base stock design must consider ecotoxicity and biodegradability.
Mineral oils are being gradually replaced by esters due to better high temperature operation. Polyols have higher temperature capability than diesters and are thus preferable for more thermally severe conditions that warrant the increased cost. The chemistry of the esters can be modified to suit requirements such as low toxicity, high biodegradability, and clean engine emissions (11, p50).
-----------------------------------
Since PAO's are catalysed to create uniform molecular polymers, free of all metals, sulfur, phosphorus, and wax, their advantages as a base substance alone include better shear resistance, higher lubricity and thermal stability, better viscosity range, and a more stable base for additives.
Your homework: Explain why you think PAO's are no better than petroleum-based oils.
Oh, and your term project will be to find out which catalysation method(s) are used by the more popular synthetic oils including:
Mobil 1
Amsoil
Redline
Royal Purple
Castrol Syntec
Reprocessed probably means its been recycled and re-refined. A lot of used motor oil is burned by ships and industrial boilers, but some does make its way back to the refineries where it lives a second life. Apparently, this is a really good thing because it takes 67 gallons of raw, crude oil to produce 1 gallon of motor oil, but only takes 2 gallons of used motor oil to produce that same gallon.
What I mean is most synthetics are mainly PAO with some esters (seal softener) and conventional added (it carries the additives). Then Redline comes along on it's web site and says that it's oil is mostly esters and it is much better. Mobile says too many esters cause excessive swelling of the seals. Esters are used in Jet oils because of the extra high temps, and are clearly not recommended for cars. But Redline says all esters is OK. What gives?
For me, it comes down to VI, flashpoint, pourpoint, TBN, and the recommended drain interval. Only Amsoil is saying, "Go ahead and use it for 35,000 miles", so that's who I use. Is it the best? It is for me.
So what is my point? It is that ESTER preponderate synthetic lubricants are better than those that are preponderantly PAO. Now, neither is any good as a motor oil with out the additive packages that mitigate the evils that wreck seals, etc., ad.inf. As your material above points out, the ester bond is the magic!
I'll stop here, presuming no one could possibly stand another paragraph of this diatribe! lol
One other thought about which syn is best. As has been said, no one here knows the exact formula on any syns. and if you did so what- its results and testing that count. So it really boils down to who has given the documented best results. Thats hairy also. I've decided who that is for me. It also boils down to your confidence level in the stuff you see and read. If you have decided that Syntec's draining oil in a bunch of running engines and everyone gathering around the last running Syntec engine-go for it.
Yes, you can make the case that it is the "mix", but even before Mobil 1 added ester for the seal protection, they proved the superiority of their PAO oil to dinos.
A good measurement then for comparison is price vs. protection. If I get the same protection from a blend of mostly PAO for half the cost of a full ester, why buy the ester? If they were the same price, I might be convinced otherwise.
There is also the question of whether a full ester is completely compatible in current automobile engines. Some have speculated that the polyol-esters may be detrimental to seal longevity as well. I have no convincing evidence one way or another here, so I will not believe that until further proof is uncovered.
Your diatribe is what keeps this topic interesting! Keep up the good work. Oh, and you get a C+ on your homework.
An alkylated aromatic is a synthetic hydrocarbon designed by Mobil with a different chemical structure than polyalphaolefins (PAOs). It is fully compatible with both the other synthetic components of Mobil 1 and with conventional motor oils. We have begun using this fluid in conjunction with PAO and synthetic esters based on their combined excellent performance in protecting your engine against wear, sludge formation and piston deposits. This makes Mobil 1 Tri-Synthetic Formula fully compatible with conventional motor oils.
Since you are touting the almighty superiority of ester (specifically polyol-ester?), could you provide a comparison of indicators showing how much better it is? I actually do not know the current protection levels of any full-ester product, and the only full-ester product that anyone can present is Redline. Can you enlighten us?
Here's what I've found so far in the current market:
(All weights are 10w-30 unless stated otherwise)
(Degrees in F)
(NK = Noack)
Redline
VI: 137
PP: -45
FP: 475
NK: 5
TBN: ???
Mobil 1
VI: 147
PP: -65
FP: 470
NK: ???
TBN: ???
Amsoil (0w-30)
VI: 196
PP: -60
FP: 464
NK: 9.2
TBN: > 11.0