Does conventional offer the same protection as synthetic?

[dnewton3]

I guess in layman's terms, dino will protect just as good at "wear protection" but synths will keep your engine internals "cleaner". Keeping your oil clean and full trumps brand to brand comparisons.

That's an overstated generalization.

Some syns have very stout addtive packages, others do not and are more "normal" in their approach.
Some conventional oils are very stout; others not.

Cleanliness is a matter of two things:
- magnitude of the additives in the lube
- rate at which the equipment (engine) gets "dirty"


Lets play a numbers game here, using some ficticious values just to eximplfy the concepts ...
Assume two lubes; one syn and one "dino". Perhaps the syn has 1500ppm of Ca and the dino has 900ppm of Ca.
Let's presume the engine contributes X grams of insolubles (soot, oxidation, etc) per hour of operation. (a "rate" of contamination)
Now consider it would take Y grams of total insolubles for deposits to form, because at that limit, the additives cannot hold the dirt in suspension.

As long as the oils are changed before that Y total happens, both lubes would be able to handle the load. Perhaps the syn could go 15k miles before the additves were overwhelmed? Perhaps the dino could go 10k miles before it was overwhelmed? Clearly the syn can last "longer" is use, but that does not mean it cleans "better". If you're changing oil at 3k or 5k miles, both oils would be equally well equipped to handle the insolubles, because neither is anywhere near compromised at those OCIs.

Basically, any engine has a contamination rate (X). Any oil has a total contamination limit (Y). The hours of operation determine how much total dirt is in the oil. As long as the oil additives are not yet maxed out, both lubes would be able to "clean" the engine.

The concept of cleanliness is not really any different than that of wear control. NEITHER product has an advantage until one of them is compromised. Reasonably shot OCIs typically will not overwhelm anything but the worst of cheap lubes. Any decent product will do just fine, regardless of base stock.

 

[Bill_W]

That's an overstated generalization.

Some syns have very stout addtive packages, others do not and are more "normal" in their approach.
Some conventional oils are very stout; others not.

Cleanliness is a matter of two things:
- magnitude of the additives in the lube
- rate at which the equipment (engine) gets "dirty"


Lets play a numbers game here, using some ficticious values just to eximplfy the concepts ...
Assume two lubes; one syn and one "dino". Perhaps the syn has 1500ppm of Ca and the dino has 900ppm of Ca.
Let's presume the engine contributes X grams of insolubles (soot, oxidation, etc) per hour of operation. (a "rate" of contamination)
Now consider it would take Y grams of total insolubles for deposits to form, because at that limit, the additives cannot hold the dirt in suspension.

As long as the oils are changed before that Y total happens, both lubes would be able to handle the load. Perhaps the syn could go 15k miles before the additves were overwhelmed? Perhaps the dino could go 10k miles before it was overwhelmed? Clearly the syn can last "longer" is use, but that does not mean it cleans "better". If you're changing oil at 3k or 5k miles, both oils woudl be equally well equipped to handle the insolubles, because neither is anywhere near compromised at those OCIs.

Basically, any engine has a contamination rate (X). Any oil has a total contamination limit (Y). The hours of operation determine how much total dirt is in the oil. As long as the oil additives are not yet maxed out, both lubes would be able to "clean" the engine.

The concept of cleanliness is not really any different than that of wear control. NEITHER product has an advantage until one of them is compromised. Reasonably shot OCIs typically will not overwhelm anything but the worst of cheap lubes. Any decent product will do just fine, regardless of base stock.

Thanks. Suspension of particles is smaller than 1 micron. Keeping them separated until the OCI.

 

[Slow Car Sport Mode]

A3/B4 is a "foundational" approval, that is, most of the approvals you'd actually be looking for would be built on top of that; it would be used as a building block or to set the minimum level of performance, the limits for which are typically restricted further with the OEM specs as well as expanded/improved upon using their own tests and protocols.

If you have an application where A3/B4 is the only requirement, yes, in theory, any oil with the same approval should perform the same, however, more advanced approvals with tighter limits on a competing product (like say M1 0w-40) are going to mean it will perform better more broadly, but that would be next to impossible for Joe Average car owner to qualify.

As an example: Recently, there was an Engineering Explained video posted that showed some of the API sequences and many folks plug API SP as being a big upgrade from SN/SN Plus. The video was sponsored by Mobil and they showed a few of the tests and spoke about some of the limits. One of the limits was for oxidative thickening where, with API SP, the allowance was reduced from 150% to 100% increase, Mobil limits themselves to 10% for M1, 5% for M1 EP. So, confined within the basic foundational approval regimen, that does not mean that all oils are going to perform the same, it just means they meet the same bar for performance, and in many cases the results of that are going to be "fine". But that does not mean that a superior product isn't going to perform better in ways that will have an impact later on in the engine's life, like cleaner ring lands, lower blowby, less consumption, less varnish...etc.

Was that the "Engineering Explained" video lol?

 

[kschachn]

Was that the "Engineering Explained" video lol?

It's right out of the Afton Specification Handbook.

 

[Slow Car Sport Mode]

It's right out of the Afton Specification Handbook.

I don't know what that is.

 

[Deleted member 89374]

Any decent product will do just fine, regardless of base stock.

That's factually true. "Synthetic" is a broadly used marketing term as every lubricant is a blend of various chemicals. Not all motor oils are equal in quality. However identically rated oils will perform similarly. Up until the point that conditions are changed, as in "you would take your vehicle to track day while running Mobil 1 5W-30 or EP 5W-30, but you wouldn't do it running SuperTech 5W-30 synthetic." I'm not even making this up, Mobil's own website recommends their off the shelf oils for track use: https://www.mobil.com/en/lubricants...-1-racing-and-motorsports/mobil-1-racing-oils

So, not only is it a fact that not all "synthetic" oils are created equal, but can you even find purely conventional oils anymore?