I found a good report on 5W40 oils

[hungdynasty]

This report even shows the PAO/HC/Ester percentage contained in some so called synthetic oil.

Report click here

 

[Boaz]

wow.... I want to send my used oil samples to that lab! Very extensive testing methods

 

[Winston]

Their statements in the final paragraph are very interesting. They basically say that to make a good oil you need a synthetic base stock or Chevron's dino base stock. However, that was in 1999/2000.

 

[AEHaas]

I too wanted to find out what oil was A, B, et cetera. But the formulations have likely changed several times since 7 or 8 years ago so it may not apply to todays selections. I would not want to be swayed by possible errors.

aehaas

 

[moribundman]

Very interesting, thank you.

 

[JAG]

That's top notch testing. Thanks. Can anyone figure out how to match up the letters in the charts to the oils listed in the table? It's apparent that the letters were NOT generated just by calling the first one "A", and the second one "B", etc, since the charts say which are synthetic and which are semi-synthetic and this contradicts the above lettering scheme. It would be really helpful to be able to decipher the lettering scheme, but they may have randomly lettered them to avoid offending the oil companies (though they already offended some of them by listing their basestock compositions).

 

[yannis]

In 2004 i sent an e-mail to Aral asking about the composition of the Aral High Tronic 5W40.
They told me it was group III.

 

[Greaser]

Interesting to see the Pennzoil Performax was 100% PAO as the Shell Helix was hydro-cracked 100%.The Mobil and Esso oils are real synthetic also.