Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: SonofJoe
One might also ask whether, taking EVERYTHING into account, the 10W20 route is fundamentally 'greener' and better for the environment than M1 AP? I rather suspect it is.
You should know very well that how "green" a product is considered to be is delineated by a couple checks in a couple rather narrow boxes.
A 1% improvement in fuel economy clearly is far more important than burning litres of oil. And, a 20,000 mile OCI is always greener, irrespective of the top ups necessary.
Okay, from the top...
Group II base oil production is intellectually very 'clever'. You take raw VGO (something that looks like lube oil), you zap it with temperature, pressure & hydrogen over a few catalyst beds to saturate aromatics and covert waxy n-paraffins into non-waxy iso-paraffins. Net out all the various effects (energy, yields, by-products, etc) and the process is more effective than even the simple Group I solvent dewaxing route.
Contrast that with PAO production. You take either natural gas or light naphtha (nothing like lube oil!) and steam crack it (a highly energy intensive, destructive process) to form a 'dirty' mix of light olefins that you need to purify. That then needs to be oglimerised to Linear Alpha Olefin (LAO) and then further purified to yield 1-decene. That then needs to be polymerised to get PAO. This complexity explains why PAOs cost around 4-5 times as much as simple Group IIs and are inherently less 'green'
Then there's the additive angle. HSD VIIs are complex polymers built up from Isoprene, Butadiene, Styrene & Divinyl Benzene followed by a Hydrogen saturation step. They are expensive materials again reflecting the amount of energy & 'destruction' consumed in their manufacture. If a 0W20 does contains said VII and a 10W20 doesn't contain any, then that's 'green' by my reckoning. One might also expect a 10W20 to contain less additive as a lot of additive basically goes into oil to counter the negative impact of the VII.
So let's talk fuel economy. At normal 'warmed-up' engine oil temperature (typically 100°C), there will be negligible difference between the fuel economy of a 0W20 & a 10W20. Only during the warm up phase will the 0W20 have an advantage over the 10W20. In Canada, in Winter, I could imagine this is significant. In Florida (or anywhere really with a sensible climate) I could similarly imagine that the fuel economy advantage of the 0W20 over a 10W20 during the warm-up phase is two tenths of bugger all.
Let's talk oil loss. The wording in the video is cleverly phrased. The oil will, from an oxidation point of view, last for 20k miles but ONLY PROVIDED it stays in your sump! I ran my own 0W20 out for 15.5k miles with no top-up. At the end of the OCI, 40% of the oil had 'disappeared'! Yes M1 AP will have a low Noack but low Noack alone does not guarantee zero oil loss. This will be especially true if you have a DI engine, low tension rings, fuel dilution, an old worn bore or you simply drive like a maniac. If you have to top up with X litres of oil over 20k miles, it negates a lot of the advantage of going with that expensive '20k capable' oil in the first place.
Which brings me to my last point. How many people who buy M1 AP will regularly drive it for exactly 20k miles and change it exactly after 12 months? There will be some definitely. Now how many people will regularly buy it and drive on it for significantly LESS than 20k miles and then change it at the end of the year. I'd say the answer is 'most people'. And for me, there's the disconnect. The raison d'être of this oil is more rooted in 'buyer psychology' (the 'I want the best oil for my car' syndrome) than it is in any kind of objective technical reality. It's why I personally wouldn't ever buy it....
Originally Posted By: SonofJoe
One might also ask whether, taking EVERYTHING into account, the 10W20 route is fundamentally 'greener' and better for the environment than M1 AP? I rather suspect it is.
You should know very well that how "green" a product is considered to be is delineated by a couple checks in a couple rather narrow boxes.
A 1% improvement in fuel economy clearly is far more important than burning litres of oil. And, a 20,000 mile OCI is always greener, irrespective of the top ups necessary.
Okay, from the top...
Group II base oil production is intellectually very 'clever'. You take raw VGO (something that looks like lube oil), you zap it with temperature, pressure & hydrogen over a few catalyst beds to saturate aromatics and covert waxy n-paraffins into non-waxy iso-paraffins. Net out all the various effects (energy, yields, by-products, etc) and the process is more effective than even the simple Group I solvent dewaxing route.
Contrast that with PAO production. You take either natural gas or light naphtha (nothing like lube oil!) and steam crack it (a highly energy intensive, destructive process) to form a 'dirty' mix of light olefins that you need to purify. That then needs to be oglimerised to Linear Alpha Olefin (LAO) and then further purified to yield 1-decene. That then needs to be polymerised to get PAO. This complexity explains why PAOs cost around 4-5 times as much as simple Group IIs and are inherently less 'green'
Then there's the additive angle. HSD VIIs are complex polymers built up from Isoprene, Butadiene, Styrene & Divinyl Benzene followed by a Hydrogen saturation step. They are expensive materials again reflecting the amount of energy & 'destruction' consumed in their manufacture. If a 0W20 does contains said VII and a 10W20 doesn't contain any, then that's 'green' by my reckoning. One might also expect a 10W20 to contain less additive as a lot of additive basically goes into oil to counter the negative impact of the VII.
So let's talk fuel economy. At normal 'warmed-up' engine oil temperature (typically 100°C), there will be negligible difference between the fuel economy of a 0W20 & a 10W20. Only during the warm up phase will the 0W20 have an advantage over the 10W20. In Canada, in Winter, I could imagine this is significant. In Florida (or anywhere really with a sensible climate) I could similarly imagine that the fuel economy advantage of the 0W20 over a 10W20 during the warm-up phase is two tenths of bugger all.
Let's talk oil loss. The wording in the video is cleverly phrased. The oil will, from an oxidation point of view, last for 20k miles but ONLY PROVIDED it stays in your sump! I ran my own 0W20 out for 15.5k miles with no top-up. At the end of the OCI, 40% of the oil had 'disappeared'! Yes M1 AP will have a low Noack but low Noack alone does not guarantee zero oil loss. This will be especially true if you have a DI engine, low tension rings, fuel dilution, an old worn bore or you simply drive like a maniac. If you have to top up with X litres of oil over 20k miles, it negates a lot of the advantage of going with that expensive '20k capable' oil in the first place.
Which brings me to my last point. How many people who buy M1 AP will regularly drive it for exactly 20k miles and change it exactly after 12 months? There will be some definitely. Now how many people will regularly buy it and drive on it for significantly LESS than 20k miles and then change it at the end of the year. I'd say the answer is 'most people'. And for me, there's the disconnect. The raison d'être of this oil is more rooted in 'buyer psychology' (the 'I want the best oil for my car' syndrome) than it is in any kind of objective technical reality. It's why I personally wouldn't ever buy it....
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