Our friend buster sent this to me in a PM so I thought I would post it. This should stir up some interesting conversations. Have at it.
From someone that works at XOM who posted on Noria awhile back. Some interesting comments.
"Since most Amsoil engine oil formulations tend to look like reverse engineered versions of older Mobil 1 formulations, are we to believe that ExxonMobil has been spending its enormous resources to produce lower quality iterations of their premier product?"
"I know Amsoil looks at tearaparts; that's why at any given moment their oil looks a whole lot like an older formulation of Mobil 1."
"You can make all of the wild claims you want. I'd prefer to get my information from the molecules. Here are some of the things they told me:
Amsoil was still using diesters for cosolvents while the industry leaders had already adopted hydrocarbon cosolvents.
Amsoil was still using PIB as a thickener while the industry leaders had already adopted high-viscosity PAOs
Since PIB doesn't have the same high VI as PAO, their VI improver levels were much higher than the industry leaders as a result.
Yes, plastic and plastic-compounding components (PIB, the copolymers used for VI improvers and diesters) are synthetic. Big deal, so are cubic zirconia. There are better ways to achieve the same goals these days, why doesn't Amsoil use those?
When your "technology" is based on reverse-engineering the formulations of the real innovators, you're going to lag by definition. While ExxonMobil and BP are working on the next iterations of Mobil 1 and Castrol Syntec, Amsoil is working on the last version of Mobil 1 and Castrol Syntec."
"Re: diesters & PAO; The reason diesters remained as a fraction (typically 10-15%) of PAO-based fluid lubes is not because diesters have any superior properties as a basestock in piston engine oils. Their purpose in those applications not as a basestock but as a cosolvent.
There's a lot of horn-tooting about the advantages of PAOs with regard to oxidative stability & VI, but I hear very little mentioned about their Achilles heel, solvency. You might be able to keep a turbine oil adpak (~1%) in solution without a cosolvent, but I wouldn't even risk that. As good as PAOs are at oxidative stability is about how poor they are with regard to solvency, for pretty much the same reasons on the molecular level.
So, PAO-based oils require a cosolvent that will hang onto the PAO with the non-polar end while grabbing the (typically) more polar additive with the polar end.
Diesters with a hydrocarbon chain length of eight or greater do this adequately.
Trimellitates would presumably be better still, but would be cost-prohibitive in a commodity product like gasoline or non-marine diesel engine lube. (Trimellitates can be thought of as "tri-esters".)
However, any ester brings along its own downsides. They are more prone to hydrolysis, for one. That's why the leaders have moved to hydrocarbon cosolvents.
Last time I checked, Amsoil was still using diesters."
"Why was Amsoil still using PIB while the industry leaders where already using high-vis PAOs?"
""If an oil doesn't meet its specs, this means that blending quality is horrible." Or maybe not, there are many more places along the path for things to go astray than the blend kettle.
Compounder-blenders are likely to have a very generic formulation that is 2-3 generations behind the majors, their exhorbitant claims notwithstanding. I've seen tearaparts of some pretty high-profile compounder-blender synthetics that were just sad. These guys are buying an adpak from Lubrizol or Infineum and blending it with basestock, usually from ExxonMobil, since that's the company with the most spare basestock capacity. Many of their "specs" beyond the physical properties are read across from the adpak & the basestock specs. In other words, they've never run many of the tests they quote on their actual completed blends, or even on a lab blend. I've seen plenty of oils represented as "GF-4" whose names are suspiciously absent from the ILSAC web page. Blend quality in this market segment is likely to be all over the map.
The majors are typically going to give you a state-of-the-art formulation. Even if LZ or INF produces their adpak, it's likely to be a custom job developed in concert between the two companies and frequently sold exclusively to the major in question. (Once they develop the next generation, you'll frequently find these now-out-of-fashion adpaks in the compounder-blenders' products.) Their problems may be in the blend kettle, but the gremlins are much more likely to creep into their heavily distributor-dependent supply chains.
Right now, most companies are still scrambling in the wake of last year's hurricane season. Any lubricant supplier who sources any portion of their formulation from the Gulf Coast is still reeling. (This subset of the industry is commonly referred to as "lubricant suppliers".)
Katrina & Rita hit the refining end of the business hard. Ike got less attention, but that storm had a very severe impact on the lube business. PAO is very short in the whole industry, still. Lots of suppliers are reformulating on the fly, partiall substituting Grp III & boosting the AO to compensate. Of necessity, this is not being done in the usual anal-retentive, by-the-numbers style that the product development function prefers. Right now is an inopportune time to make a long-term judgement of an oil's (or supplier's) quality based on what's currently on the shelf.
Probably 95% of the cars & light trucks on the road will see no difference in engine life between a synthetic & a good quality mineral. Lots of high-end cars are specifying synthetics, but that has more to do with their desire to present a certain cachet to the market rather than the actual lubrication requirements of the engine in question."
"That's just based on tearaparts I've seen, from a group of some very talented chemists playing with some very fancy toys. "Synthetic" can be about as useful a term with oil as "organic" is with food. Plastic-related materials (as in high levels of VI improver, PIB & diester) are synthetic, but there are better things to put in your lubricants these days. (But those better components, specifically high-vis PAOs and non-ester cosolvents, cut into the bottom line, you know.)
Any supplier touting one specific additive might very well be using that as sleight of hand to distract you from thinking about the rest of a fairly pedestrian formulation.
The same goes for touting one property. "We have 8 ZILLION times better wear protection than Brand X (and those deposits all over the place, uh, they give you extra rust protection, yeah, that's the ticket.)"
Think of a lube formulation as a partly filled balloon. If you squeeze it one place, it's going to bulge out somewhere else. You can also think of an additive like a drug, it's got beneficial properties and side effects. If you push too hard on one property, it's going to hurt you somewhere else. Better suppliers will try to give you a comprehensive formulation that gives the best possible overall performance the current technology can provide."
From someone that works at XOM who posted on Noria awhile back. Some interesting comments.
"Since most Amsoil engine oil formulations tend to look like reverse engineered versions of older Mobil 1 formulations, are we to believe that ExxonMobil has been spending its enormous resources to produce lower quality iterations of their premier product?"
"I know Amsoil looks at tearaparts; that's why at any given moment their oil looks a whole lot like an older formulation of Mobil 1."
"You can make all of the wild claims you want. I'd prefer to get my information from the molecules. Here are some of the things they told me:
Amsoil was still using diesters for cosolvents while the industry leaders had already adopted hydrocarbon cosolvents.
Amsoil was still using PIB as a thickener while the industry leaders had already adopted high-viscosity PAOs
Since PIB doesn't have the same high VI as PAO, their VI improver levels were much higher than the industry leaders as a result.
Yes, plastic and plastic-compounding components (PIB, the copolymers used for VI improvers and diesters) are synthetic. Big deal, so are cubic zirconia. There are better ways to achieve the same goals these days, why doesn't Amsoil use those?
When your "technology" is based on reverse-engineering the formulations of the real innovators, you're going to lag by definition. While ExxonMobil and BP are working on the next iterations of Mobil 1 and Castrol Syntec, Amsoil is working on the last version of Mobil 1 and Castrol Syntec."
"Re: diesters & PAO; The reason diesters remained as a fraction (typically 10-15%) of PAO-based fluid lubes is not because diesters have any superior properties as a basestock in piston engine oils. Their purpose in those applications not as a basestock but as a cosolvent.
There's a lot of horn-tooting about the advantages of PAOs with regard to oxidative stability & VI, but I hear very little mentioned about their Achilles heel, solvency. You might be able to keep a turbine oil adpak (~1%) in solution without a cosolvent, but I wouldn't even risk that. As good as PAOs are at oxidative stability is about how poor they are with regard to solvency, for pretty much the same reasons on the molecular level.
So, PAO-based oils require a cosolvent that will hang onto the PAO with the non-polar end while grabbing the (typically) more polar additive with the polar end.
Diesters with a hydrocarbon chain length of eight or greater do this adequately.
Trimellitates would presumably be better still, but would be cost-prohibitive in a commodity product like gasoline or non-marine diesel engine lube. (Trimellitates can be thought of as "tri-esters".)
However, any ester brings along its own downsides. They are more prone to hydrolysis, for one. That's why the leaders have moved to hydrocarbon cosolvents.
Last time I checked, Amsoil was still using diesters."
"Why was Amsoil still using PIB while the industry leaders where already using high-vis PAOs?"
""If an oil doesn't meet its specs, this means that blending quality is horrible." Or maybe not, there are many more places along the path for things to go astray than the blend kettle.
Compounder-blenders are likely to have a very generic formulation that is 2-3 generations behind the majors, their exhorbitant claims notwithstanding. I've seen tearaparts of some pretty high-profile compounder-blender synthetics that were just sad. These guys are buying an adpak from Lubrizol or Infineum and blending it with basestock, usually from ExxonMobil, since that's the company with the most spare basestock capacity. Many of their "specs" beyond the physical properties are read across from the adpak & the basestock specs. In other words, they've never run many of the tests they quote on their actual completed blends, or even on a lab blend. I've seen plenty of oils represented as "GF-4" whose names are suspiciously absent from the ILSAC web page. Blend quality in this market segment is likely to be all over the map.
The majors are typically going to give you a state-of-the-art formulation. Even if LZ or INF produces their adpak, it's likely to be a custom job developed in concert between the two companies and frequently sold exclusively to the major in question. (Once they develop the next generation, you'll frequently find these now-out-of-fashion adpaks in the compounder-blenders' products.) Their problems may be in the blend kettle, but the gremlins are much more likely to creep into their heavily distributor-dependent supply chains.
Right now, most companies are still scrambling in the wake of last year's hurricane season. Any lubricant supplier who sources any portion of their formulation from the Gulf Coast is still reeling. (This subset of the industry is commonly referred to as "lubricant suppliers".)
Katrina & Rita hit the refining end of the business hard. Ike got less attention, but that storm had a very severe impact on the lube business. PAO is very short in the whole industry, still. Lots of suppliers are reformulating on the fly, partiall substituting Grp III & boosting the AO to compensate. Of necessity, this is not being done in the usual anal-retentive, by-the-numbers style that the product development function prefers. Right now is an inopportune time to make a long-term judgement of an oil's (or supplier's) quality based on what's currently on the shelf.
Probably 95% of the cars & light trucks on the road will see no difference in engine life between a synthetic & a good quality mineral. Lots of high-end cars are specifying synthetics, but that has more to do with their desire to present a certain cachet to the market rather than the actual lubrication requirements of the engine in question."
"That's just based on tearaparts I've seen, from a group of some very talented chemists playing with some very fancy toys. "Synthetic" can be about as useful a term with oil as "organic" is with food. Plastic-related materials (as in high levels of VI improver, PIB & diester) are synthetic, but there are better things to put in your lubricants these days. (But those better components, specifically high-vis PAOs and non-ester cosolvents, cut into the bottom line, you know.)
Any supplier touting one specific additive might very well be using that as sleight of hand to distract you from thinking about the rest of a fairly pedestrian formulation.
The same goes for touting one property. "We have 8 ZILLION times better wear protection than Brand X (and those deposits all over the place, uh, they give you extra rust protection, yeah, that's the ticket.)"
Think of a lube formulation as a partly filled balloon. If you squeeze it one place, it's going to bulge out somewhere else. You can also think of an additive like a drug, it's got beneficial properties and side effects. If you push too hard on one property, it's going to hurt you somewhere else. Better suppliers will try to give you a comprehensive formulation that gives the best possible overall performance the current technology can provide."
