Group III in over supply

[David1]

Why do people say that Synthetic or Synthetic Oil in the USA would not be Synthetic in other countries say U.K or parts of Europe or perhaps even Canada?

Does USA Downgrade its Oil???

Im confused about this... Is there a post about this?


I just hear people say that USA has a weak opinion of what Synthetic oil is or the standard or somthing.

Any info would be nice

Thanks

 

[wapacz]

Originally Posted By: David1
Why do people say that Synthetic or Synthetic Oil in the USA would not be Synthetic in other countries say U.K or parts of Europe or perhaps even Canada?

Does USA Downgrade its Oil???

Im confused about this... Is there a post about this?


I just hear people say that USA has a weak opinion of what Synthetic oil is or the standard or somthing.

Any info would be nice

Thanks



There was a whole court case on what could be considered synthetic for marketing purposes in the US. The decision was that you could market group III as synthetic in the US. Over in Europe it has to be group IV or V.

Now Group III is heavily processed crude oil, but we are talking processing to the point that the chemical structure of the components are changed. Where as group IV is formed from by reacting chemicals together.

In the past there was a bit of a performance gap between the two but at this point there isn't really that much of one.

 

[benjy]

group III oils legally called synthetic in usa are a good value @ $5 a qt generally, group IV + V man made lubricants have advantages but cost double or more, unless you have a hi performance car or hot running air cooled motorcycle or want extended changes group III oils are excellent, i prefer the added benefits of Group IV-V amsoil in ALL my engines!!!!! group 3.5 from gas to liquid technology is said to rival group IV oils. big oil like the drug giants like to keep us in the dark charging as much as possible, at least overpriced oil won't KILL us like prescription drugs

 

[Olas]

Here in Europe you cannot sell a Grp.III oil as synthetic because it came out of the ground, and as such it is considered a naturally occuring mineral. That it has been hydrocracked is irrelevant, because it was still drilled out of the ground and no matter how much you mess about with it, it came out of the ground.

For an oil in Europe to be referred to or sold as Synthetic, it must be Grp. IV or V, made in a Lab, by a man in a white coat.

As I understand it the US court case depended on *very* highly paid lawyers and a stupid Judge with no understanding of lubricqant technology or automotive systems..

 

[benjy]

i will drink to that! castrol looking to make more $$$$ thru deception screwed everything up! before that you knew for sure synthetic was that 100% group IV + or V base oils, their parent company BP are the ones that polluted the gulf and LIED about how BAD it really was, in the end consumers pay for their careless mistakes, sorry NO Castrol products for ME!!

 

[MolaKule]

Originally Posted By: David1
Why do people say that Synthetic or Synthetic Oil in the USA would not be Synthetic in other countries say U.K or parts of Europe or perhaps even Canada?

Does USA Downgrade its Oil???

Im confused about this... Is there a post about this?


I just hear people say that USA has a weak opinion of what Synthetic oil is or the standard or somthing.

Any info would be nice

Thanks


Quote:
There was a whole court case on what could be considered synthetic for marketing purposes in the US. The decision was that you could market group III as synthetic in the US. Over in Europe it has to be group IV or V.

Now Group III is heavily processed crude oil, but we are talking processing to the point that the chemical structure of the components are changed. Where as group IV is formed from by reacting chemicals together.

In the past there was a bit of a performance gap between the two but at this point there isn't really that much of one.


We need to work on your internet searches.

No court case decided this, it was a BBB NAD decision:


Here are some excerpts from the Nov., 2000 issue of Car and Driver by Patrick Bedard


Quote:
...Here's what happened, according to a detailed account published in the trade magazine Lubricants World. Late in 1997, Castrol changed the formula of its Syntec "full synthetic motor oil", eliminating the polyalphaolefin (PAO) base stock (that's the "synthetic" part, which makes up about 70% by volume of what's in the bottle) and replacing it with a "hydroisomerized" [GroupIII] petroleum base stock.

Mobil Oil Corporation, maker of Mobil 1, "Worlds Leading Synthetic Motor Oil," said no fair and took its complaint to the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. NAD often arbitrates between feuding advertisers on their conflicting claims...

Still, there's more than one road to the point B of improved stability. Petroleum refiners in recent years have learned how to break apart certain undesirable molecules - wax, for example, which causes thickening of oil at low temperatures- and transform them by chemical reaction into helpful molecules. These new hydroisomerized base oils, in the view of some industry participants provided properties similar to PAO's but only cost half as much," Lubricants World reported...


All components for GroupIV and Group V base oils are derived from specific products resulting from crude oil distillation. These components are then synthesized to produce Groups IV and V.

The following is just Mola's opinion:

Quote:
The business council decision simply muddied the waters about what is and isn't a real synthetic.

Exon benefitted greatly because they could make their own GroupIII mixes and continue to make the same claims without having 100% synthetics in their formulations.

I have pointed out the fact that EXOM had GroupIII patents that pre-dated the Castrol decision and have asked them why they did not go to a chemistry council for a decision instead of some business council which knew nothing about lubrication technology.

Why would a major oil company go to a business group to resolve this issue instead of going to say the American Chemistry Council or other fully qualified groups that would have knowledge of lubrication engineering and the chemistry of lubricants?


Formulated oils today take the best performance aspects of many base oils and mix them.

It is the total formulation of the mix of various base oils groups and additives that make the good oils today.

 

[MolaKule]

The editing timeout got me.

Here is what I intended to say:

Quote:
Formulated oils today are a mix of various base oil groups to arrive at a targeted performance spec.

It is the total formulation of this mix of various base oil groups and additives that make the good oils we have today.

 

[Wilhelm_D]

Originally Posted By: wapacz
There was a whole court case on what could be considered synthetic for marketing purposes in the US. The decision was that you could market group III as synthetic in the US.


It was not a court case.

Late in 1997, Castrol changed the formula of its Syntec "full synthetic motor oil," eliminating the polyalphaolefin (PAO) base stock and replacing it with a "hydroisomerized" petroleum base stock.

Mobil Oil Corporation, maker of Mobil 1, "said no fair and took its complaint to the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. NAD often arbitrates between feuding advertisers on their conflicting claims.

Mobil's experts said "synthetic" traditionally meant big molecules built up from small ones. Castrol's side held out for a looser description, defining "synthetic" as "the product of an intended chemical reaction."

The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and the American Petroleum Institute (API) had previously backed away from their old definitions of "synthetic" in the 90s leaving room for Castrol's interpretation.

The NAD decided that the evidence constituted a reasonable basis for the claim that Castrol Syntec is a synthetic motor oil.

 

[Tom NJ]

Also keep in mind that the NAD did not decide that all Group IIIs are now synthetic. Their decision was specific to the charge against Castrol, that is, they ruled that Castrol could call its Syntec oil "synthetic". The Castrol product at the time was based on Group III+. After the ruling, the market decided to extend this new definition to all Group IIIs, correctly anticipating that no further challenges would be made.

Tom NJ

 

[MolaKule]

Originally Posted By: Wilhelm_D
Originally Posted By: wapacz
There was a whole court case on what could be considered synthetic for marketing purposes in the US. The decision was that you could market group III as synthetic in the US.


It was not a court case.


The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and the American Petroleum Institute (API) had previously backed away from their old definitions of "synthetic" in the 90s leaving room for Castrol's interpretation.

The NAD decided that the evidence constituted a reasonable basis for the claim that Castrol Syntec is a synthetic motor oil.


Yep, that is what I said above. I also sated

Here are some excerpts from the Nov., 2000 issue of Car and Driver by Patrick Bedard:

If you read the rest of the "Lubricants World. Late 1997" edition, you will see that the SAE and the API turned tail and ran away from the controversy.

Again, my point is, if EXOM was serious about defending the true meaning of "synthetic," why not go to a chemistry council and present their case to a knowledgeable, technical institution/council where you had a plethora of MS and PhD chemists and tribologists, instead of a bunch of uninformed bean counters?

 

[Wilhelm_D]

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Again, my point is, if EXOM was serious about defending the true meaning of "synthetic," why not go to a chemistry council and present their case to a knowledgeable, technical institution/council where you had a plethora of MS and PhD chemists and tribologists, instead of a bunch of uninformed bean counters?

Apparently because the NAD actually has some (voluntary) jurisdiction over advertising while chemists have no jurisdiction. Assuming some chemists supported Mobil, what would be accomplished?

 

[galaxy333]

One of my old bosses said to me if you don't like something vote with your feet, meaning if people arn't happy with Castrol don't buy from them and make it known why, same with Mobil if you don't trust whats in it then don't buy it.

I would NEVER buy any food that wasn't labeled up with what's in it, but although I will not buy food so long as a lubricant meets the spec my manufacturer wants I would be happy to use it, if the spec on the oil didn't meet my manufacturers spec I wouldn't use it even if if was made from diamond dust and cost 1 cent for 10 gallons.

 

[MolaKule]

Originally Posted By: Wilhelm_D
Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Again, my point is, if EXOM was serious about defending the true meaning of "synthetic," why not go to a chemistry council and present their case to a knowledgeable, technical institution/council where you had a plethora of MS and PhD chemists and tribologists, instead of a bunch of uninformed bean counters?


Assuming some chemists supported Mobil, what would be accomplished?


I thought that would be self evident.

There is a major danger in re-defining things when there is no good scientific or compelling reason to do so.


It looks as if Castrrol is at it again:

BP/Castrol to Appeal

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: MolaKule

It looks as if Castrrol is at it again:

BP/Castrol to Appeal

Originally Posted By: galaxy333
One of my old bosses said to me if you don't like something vote with your feet, meaning if people arn't happy with Castrol don't buy from them and make it known why, same with Mobil if you don't trust whats in it then don't buy it.


That's the kind of business practice that turns me off. I don't care how good Castrol's oil is, I won't intentionally buy or use it at the same price over the more "honest" brands.

 

[Wilhelm_D]

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Quote:
Assuming some chemists supported Mobil, what would be accomplished?

I thought that would be self evident.

It isn't to me.

I know of no body of chemists and/or tribologists who have a national forum to the buying public.

That would have left it up to Mobil to engage in a negative advertising campaign, and we all know how effective those are.

 

[Shannow]

I've spoken to an ex Mobil tech who was on the floor when Mobil elected to started declaring GrIII downunder as synthetic (e.g. Mobil 1 is synthetic, but the next price range down is "fully synthetic" also)...intnernally, they had huge arguments and disputes over Mobil's prior stance versus their new commercial, to the point of resignations.

Made no difference to the marketting...

Mobil doesn't have techs available for advice anymore in Oz....best you can get out of your "regional supplier" is what the book says or doesn't say.

 

[Clevy]

So can we conclude German Castrol is made from these group 3 basestocks?

And I too was all bent out of shape over "real" and "true" synthetics and to be honest the basestocks are merely components in a formula so it's the finished formula that matters,not any 1 single component.
Thanks to bitog I learned that the value of a lubricant is the sum if all it's parts and with today's tech and gas to liquid as an example an oil company can formulate a stellar product that is as good as or better than those pao and poe oils and can cut the costs significantly in the process.
So getting hung up in any single one component in a formulation is truly not seeing the forest for the trees.
If a finished lube meets the specs or criteria required of it who cares how it's made,and if those specs could only be met by specific basestocks that are very expensive which therefore makes the cost to the consumer higher shouldn't that same consumer be pleased that now due to the progression of technology that same spec can be met using ingredients that are less costly.
I for one would be ecstatic if my special race engine(for example) used to cost me 400 for an oil change and now it's less than half.
Woohoo.
It's called progress guys. Learn fast or get left behind quick right.

 

[CATERHAM]

I don't know if the GC sold in NA is now GP III based although in Germany only GP IV and GP V based oils can be labelled as synthetic.

But you're right performance is all that matters and formulators will use the cheapest components to achieve the target specifications. But sometimes the target is just to be better than a competing product at a certain criterion and that's when marketing comes into the equation.
Overtime certain quality components that are or were necessary to achieve curtain lubrication goals such as synthetic fluids like PAO and esters become known to the buying public and they then take on a marketing dimension all of their own. Then the component becomes a major marketing tool in and of itself whether or not the end product is any better as a total package.

Add to that, that technology is always evolving. There are GP III+ oils with higher VIs than PAOs and relatively cheap GTL oils that have amongst the lowest NOACK percentages of any base oils.

 

[MolaKule]

Quote:
So getting hung up in any single one component in a formulation is truly not seeing the forest for the trees.


It will always be that the performance of the total formulation is what matters.

But there is also truth in advertising and something called "ethics" in chemistry.

To change the definition of what "IS" is to suit your advertising campaign is neither ethical or scientific.

 

[2oldtommy]

A GTL refinery to take advantage of the oil and gas from the Utica and Marcellas shale formations in SE. PA and eastern OH has been proposed and is in the planning stage. As I understand it, this production of GTL liquids will exceed any existing NA source. Production is not expected before 2016. Stay tuned.

Oldtommy