dnewton3
Staff member
That's an overstated generalization.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.
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.
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