Find out which specific approval requirements are being violated by using PAO in the base stock.
So i received a reply from my product managers and it basically states that most PAO's COULD get a factory approval, because the approvals aren't reliant on a fixed number, it's within a certain range.
"Every manufacturer standard has certain parameters that you have to adhere to.
However, these parameters are usually not fixed parameters – they are more like ranges. In the case of an HTHS value, for example, this can mean that it must be
> 3.5. The "HC synthesis" product then has a HTHS of 3.6 and the fully synthetic product (PAO) may have a HTHS of 4.0. So it still meets the specification and can be approved.
The problem in this case is that the approval costs are too high compared to the sales generated by such a product.
The reason is because the most people aren’t like you and me. They don’t want to have the expensive oil which can run their intervals. They want to have an oil which is cheap and can run the same intervals. That’s the economic crux of this story…."
In other words, there are solutions here so that manufacturer specifications can also be claimed with fully synthetic products without to violate the requirements, but most companies chose to forgo the approvals because of a cost factor. The majority of the population won't understand the difference and just see a price tag. That's the answer I received from my team in Germany regarding that.
Makes a little more sense for myself as well. We as a collective group are still far and away the minority when it comes to this. If I tried to walk into a repair shop and sell a PAO drum at 40% higher cost vs the Group III alternative, I would be sitting on a lot of unsold PAO drums.
Hope that answers it for you?
Thanks!
Ken Mooney
President - ROWE USA/Canada