Originally Posted By: AlcorPetrolab
I own the test lab that performed the analysis for KXAN. We don't do used oil analysis like Blackstone - we work only on new oils with the lubricant manufacturers. I can give you some additional background on how the testing was performed. It is correct that the typical used oil analysis won't reveal whether the oil is conventional or synthetic. However, we performed two tests that together can show the difference in most cases.
The first test was an FTIR (fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) scan. This shows characteristic peaks at certain wavelengths of light when chemical bonds are excited by the IR light. We ran the IR scan on the oil from the vehicle and compared it with a scan of the oil that was supposed to have been put in the car. Mobil 1, in particular, uses a unique antioxidant package that can be clearly seen by FTIR compared with other products. Since the shop was claiming to use Mobil 1, that made it pretty easy to detect.
Interesting. I know you have proprietary interests, but I am wondering if this "antioxidant package" will show up in a conventional UOA?
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One of the things in the presentation that wasn't in the TV clip was that we also tested oil from quite a few brand name quick lube places in the Austin area. All of the brand name and franchise stores were doing the right thing. The independent that was interviewed on camera was caught cheating. Another single-location independent had test results that were inconsistent with synthetic oil.
There are at least three industry organizations that self-police the lubricant manufacturers (API, ILMA, and PQIA), but I'm not aware of any that do field audits of quick lube stores. It's unfortunate, because the incentive to cheat is obvious.
As a former (long time ago) quick lube worker and supervisor, I can say that at a major chain there is little incentive for the average worker to cheat. I certainly always enjoyed making sure people got what they paid for and the company was paying it's fair share, we were under pressure to make sales and increase tickets, so we insured that the company also had its costs increase for materials used. If someone paid for syn, [censored] right I would break out the bottles of beautiful syn and put them in there!..
But yeah, I wouldn't trust some independent operators as far as I could throw them...