Is Mobil Delvac a Group III oil?

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My question is why does it matter?

Your question is somewhat obsolete and therefore irrelevant. People can argue synthetic group III vs. IV/V until they are blue in the face - doesn't help anything...

The best oil is the one that produces the best UOA results for YOUR driving profile in YOUR engine.
 
I believe Delvac 1 is a Group IV/V oil.

JHZR2 is correct in that it is the performance of the oil that matters, and Delvac 1 has proven to be a top performer.
 
He also is new and could very easily get caught up in the stupid group III vs. group IV/V arguments which truly are worthless for the most part.

Perhaps something can be learned, beyond just perpetuating some misconceptions.
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
He also is new and could very easily get caught up in the stupid group III vs. group IV/V arguments which truly are worthless for the most part.

Perhaps something can be learned, beyond just perpetuating some misconceptions.

I agree.
 
I'd say the only complaint would be in the form of a question. Have they reduced costs in the light of a cheaper process or held cost in check (same price while PAO stuff continues to climb)??
 
Why does it matter? Well it matters because I simply don't think that a group III oil will perform as well as a group IV/V oil. I also don't think that a group III oil should be priced as high or higher than a group IV/V oil. No offense, but I also think that you should come up with a more unique response than the duplicate answers you gave in this thread. As far as UOAs go, I don't think they help much when there are large wear particles involved, I feel that they will sink to the pan before you can take the oil sample.


Originally Posted By: JHZR2
My question is why does it matter?

Your question is somewhat obsolete and therefore irrelevant. People can argue synthetic group III vs. IV/V until they are blue in the face - doesn't help anything...

The best oil is the one that produces the best UOA results for YOUR driving profile in YOUR engine.
 
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Blink, modern engine oils use a combination of several different base fluids to achieve a desired result. There aren't any 'pure' group 4 or group 5 oils. They all will use a mixture of fluids to help with miscibility of additives.

With that said, I believe that it would be safe to say that the Delvac-1 ESP uses a high percentage of gp. 4 basestock based on the pour point and flash point of the oil. With a pour point of -48ºC (-55ºF) and a flash point of 249ºC (480ºF), this is a strong performing fluid. It most certainly contains a high percentage of PAO.
 
Originally Posted By: FowVay
I believe that it would be safe to say that the Delvac-1 ESP uses a high percentage of gp. 4 basestock based on the pour point and flash point of the oil. With a pour point of -48ºC (-55ºF) and a flash point of 249ºC (480ºF), this is a strong performing fluid. It most certainly contains a high percentage of PAO.

I agree it would almost have to with them kind of numbers.
 
Originally Posted By: Blink7
Is Mobil Delvac ESP 5w-40 a Group III oil?


The short answer is "no". All M1 oils are grp 4. Perhaps blends of 3-4-5.
 
Originally Posted By: Blink7
Why does it matter? Well it matters because I simply don't think that a group III oil will perform as well as a group IV/V oil. I also don't think that a group III oil should be priced as high or higher than a group IV/V oil. No offense, but I also think that you should come up with a more unique response than the duplicate answers you gave in this thread. As far as UOAs go, I don't think they help much when there are large wear particles involved, I feel that they will sink to the pan before you can take the oil sample.




I posted here first... After you've been here a while, youll find that the same questions come up nearly every day... and people don't even make the slightest attempt to read or research the toipic a bit.

If you have big wear particles, youve got bigger issues. When you see "big" metallic particles coming off your engine, it is dead.

Again, point is, the "value proposition" argument is worthless. Unless there is a significant need for ultra-low temperature flow properties, the balanced package should provide lower wear and better overall protection. Just because something is 99% PAO or 95% POE, doesn't mean that it is the best by any stretch... And if you're looking at non-boutique oils (i.e. oils you can buy at wal-mart), which have to meet a price point, you truly are better off with a balanced package than trying to offer you the end-all, be-all basestock (which you more than likely will NOT use the benefits of the basestock), with a junky add pack.

The oil industry, and in particularly the HDEO industry is EXTREMELY competitive. Even if Mobil puts group III into its Delvac, you can be sure that they will make every move necessary to ensure it stays the industry standard. If there is a reason to put group III into delvac 1, which isnt't really a wal-mart oil, and is always sold at a premium from what I've seen, you can be pretty sure that there is a reason, and it is to best something that shell or chevron has done, in order for mobil to retain industry leadership.
 
Oil will be priced as high as the market will bear. The only concern is that advertising is as truthful as we're used to getting...not absolute truth, but puffery no worse than usual and no outright lies.

Group IV PAO based oils will flow better when extremely cold. Not a consideration in Tennessee. Other things remaining equal, PAO has higher film strength that conventional oil. Other things are never equal.
 
What is defined as extreme cold? (that varies from one's location and past locations). Having lived in Alaska, I consider anything below -30*F extreme cold.
 
In the world of lubricants, I suppose you could define the term "extreme cold" as that point where dino fluids are significantly outperformed by "synthetic" fluids, as far as cold pour point and pumping ability.

For me, I consider "extreme cold" to be -10 deg F, perhaps as low as -15 deg F. Anything above that is not "extreme" to me. Most 15w-40 dino HDEOs will pump decently at zero deg F. My Dmax engine supplement shows 15w-40 acceptable down to there. However, I also know that a 10w-30 HDEO dino product will be a bit "better" at pour point and flow at any given "cold" temp. Below -10 or -15 deg F, you see a significant advantage to synthetic products, especailly those that are chiefly group IV in nature.
 
I have to weigh in on this thread. If you market a Group III oil to be as good as a Group IV/V oil, that can be argued. When a company uses cheaper basestocks and charges the same price as the companies that use PAO basestocks it constitutes fraud on the motoring public. Car and Driver has an excellent article on the Mobil 1 vs Castrol Syntec.
Castrol came up with a way to hydrocrack dino oil and get a judge to legally say it is fully synthetic.
Castrol Edge is a Group III with some PAO to get the low pour point rating.
 
Agree. There are alot of opinion heres and that's great. I love it when people here state, "A group III can be just as good as a IV/V base oil" with absolutely no proof of this always being so. Yes some IV/V base oils are going to be poor, but take a quality oil from Redline or Motul, put it up against the queen of BITOG(Pennzoil Platinum) and the PP is going to be trounced! I like Pennzoil. For that matter I like Mobil 1 and have seen it perform in harsh environments (racing). There is always going to be something better. If we are talking misinformation and educating a new member lets all try to remember that there is always going to be the exception to the rule.
 
Originally Posted By: AzFireGuy79
Agree. There are alot of opinion heres and that's great. I love it when people here state, "A group III can be just as good as a IV/V base oil" with absolutely no proof of this always being so. Yes some IV/V base oils are going to be poor, but take a quality oil from Redline or Motul, put it up against the queen of BITOG(Pennzoil Platinum) and the PP is going to be trounced! I like Pennzoil. For that matter I like Mobil 1 and have seen it perform in harsh environments (racing). There is always going to be something better. If we are talking misinformation and educating a new member lets all try to remember that there is always going to be the exception to the rule.

When you say PP will get trounced, what are the metrics? I'm not arguing, just wondering by which factors Redline/AMS will trounce PP.
 
Please check out my recent post on deciphering the base oil of Mobil Delvac 1300 in 10W30 & 15W40 grades. I start to do some digging and got to Viscosity Improvers (VI) as an indicator of base oil composition. Based on my reading there is high degree of confidence that 1300 is a high % of Group III sold at low price. The thread has stonewalled with the question of how effectively base oil type can be derived by VI index values. I cited as much as I could to many of the blind remarks here.

As far as Mobil 5W40 is concerned keep some history in mind. When I first used Mobil 1 (TriSynthetic) after switching from Royal Purple the bottle said [paraphrased] "fully synthetic exclusive of carrier oil." The board chemists coded that to mean at that time Mobil had to use conventional mineral oil to solvate thier additive blend packages. In other words, the Group IV/VI Mobil TriSynthetic base stocks at the time could not effectively hold additives alone.

However by the time SuperSyn was released many board members noted that Mobil technology now had improved allowing them to have IV/VI base stocks for which they could directly blend in there additive packages. Based on additives history noted above, some posters may not be far off in understanding even a mostly PAO oil may have some II/III oil mixed in for reasons we do not know. Just because we do not know does not make the reasons sinister either. Personally, I would prefer if the United States adopted European definitions of Synthetics. This way Group IIIs would be become the dominant conventional base stocks and be priced accordingly.
 
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