GF 3, SL classification??

[carl97ss]

on the new SL class oil, they all say "GF3". I assumed that meant group fluid 3 base oil. However, in looking over this awsome site, most conventional oils are actually GF2 or GF2+ base. what am i missing here?

 

[Patman]

GF-3 doesn't stand for the base oil used, it's the latest number in the ILSAC rating system. The next one coming up is GF-4, which Bob talks about here in this thread: http://theoildrop.server101.com/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000003

 

[csandste]

I've posted this a few places before (maybe Edmunds, not here) and never gotten a reply. Why were so many oils able to certify their dinos as SL/ILSAC before their synthetics. Even Mobil's conventional oils beat Mobil 1 by several months. BTW-- Even though I use dino, I'm not arguing that there is no benefit to synthetics. I do believe they're better, just not better enough to make a major difference in the 200K life of a car.

 

[Johnny]

<b>csandste:</b> Maybe I can try to answer your question. Most major brand synthetics (Pennzoil, Mobil, Valvoline, Castrol, Chevron, etc) met the SL spec long before the conventional oil did. Here again, the marketing boys run the show and the budget. I can tell you that our synthetic is just now starting to see the SL labels come out. The reason for this was all the oil companies had tons of old SJ labels, and they are going to use them all. And, the oil companies always change the conventional label first because this is what they sell the most of. On the national average, synthetic sales are only about 6% of the business. It's just economics and marketing.

 

[Patman]

Johnny, when Tri-Synthetic Mobil 1 came out in the US in 1999, about 3-4 months went by and it still wasn't in Canada so I phoned the Mobil 1-800 number up here and one of the reps told me that it had already arrived up here but they were still using the old bottles. So you'd think you were buying Advanced Formula, but Tri-Synth was already inside. We still don't have SuperSyn up here, at least it's not labelled as such yet, but maybe they are doing the same trick? Have you ever heard of this practice before? Or did the M1 rep just say that to get me to buy up old stock? (I ended up buying a whole bunch of Tri-synth in the US anyways)

 

[Al]

Patman. If the container is listed "SL", I'm sure it is SuperSyn. The color changed as well as the Pour point when they went to the SuperSy. They seem to have had a fiasco with their Labling/packaging. Compare color. I wouldn't even be surprised If they hafe "SJ" containers with SuperSyn. Scary Stuff!!

 

[Patman]

All of our containers up here still say SJ and Tri Synthetic on them. Canada is always slow to get the new stuff, we sell even less synthetics up here (which is strange because the colder temps mean synthetic is more necessary)

 

[sprintman]

No Supersyn in Oz yet. Mobil are taking a big hit in sales as no SL product available. I don't believe SS will be inferior to Tri as each Mobil 1 oil release has been an improvement over previous formulation according to some recent posts here. Just need those analysis figures!

 

[widman]

As Johnny says, it is volume. And very often the new formulation is in old containers. 96% of my volume is Drums and Pails, (I get truckloads every 2 weeks) so I have SL/CI-4 in drums and pails, but it will be months before I order more pallets of each of the gallons and quarts (and the plants may still have old inventory), and probably at least a year more to sell the rest of my Synthetic 5w30 quarts.

 

[Greg]

quote:

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Originally posted by Patman: All of our containers up here still say SJ and Tri Synthetic on them.

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Not true. I changed my oil today with type SL Mobil 1 Tri-Synthetic, and bought a 1 Litre bottle of the same stuff.

 

[Patman]

Keep in mind Greg, when I posted that it was a month ago. About two weeks after that I started noticing the first SL TriSynthetics arriving up here, and now I don't see much SJ stuff left (except in 15w50)