Petrolium Oil company selling Synthetic

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what is the advantage of buying synthetic oil from a company that sells cheaper grades of petrolium products?
do they have testing for the synthetic oils that warrant a clear advantage for the price?
Minus Mobil1 15,000 , do any other manufactures warranty their Synthetic oils to last a certain amount of time and or miles?
If I wanted to buy Castrol syntec how long would it last? I have not seen to date on any petrolium oil company selling synthetic a claim of actual time and or milage.
for the $5/$9 dollars a quart compared to $2/$4 dollars a quart for dino how would one justify Synthetic advantage over dino oil?
I really dont see it.
I see another way the oil company is selling a product they are not running out of. popular to contrary belief
 
Mobil 1 EP (Extended Performance), Castrol Edge, and Amsoil 100% synthetics guarantee their oils up to 15,000 miles or more.

In general, a good synthetic will last about twice as long as a conventional oil, IMO. For some people that is 5000 or 7500 miles and for others it may be 15,000 miles.

But I would probably not include Castrol Syntec in the category unless you are talking about the 0W-30 made in Germany.
 
Originally Posted By: Mark888
Mobil 1 EP (Extended Performance), Castrol Edge, and Amsoil 100% synthetics guarantee their oils up to 15,000 miles or more.

In general, a good synthetic will last about twice as long as a conventional oil, IMO. For some people that is 5000 or 7500 miles and for others it may be 15,000 miles.

But I would probably not include Castrol Syntec in the category unless you are talking about the 0W-30 made in Germany.


I was trying to bring up the valitidy of DINO oil companies marketing their synthetic oils like Supratech, Valvoline,Texaco,Shell,generaly all the old school oil companies that jumped on the synthetic oil bandwagon.
 
Originally Posted By: lazaro
Originally Posted By: Mark888
Mobil 1 EP (Extended Performance), Castrol Edge, and Amsoil 100% synthetics guarantee their oils up to 15,000 miles or more.

In general, a good synthetic will last about twice as long as a conventional oil, IMO. For some people that is 5000 or 7500 miles and for others it may be 15,000 miles.

But I would probably not include Castrol Syntec in the category unless you are talking about the 0W-30 made in Germany.


I was trying to bring up the valitidy of DINO oil companies marketing their synthetic oils like Supratech, Valvoline,Texaco,Shell,generaly all the old school oil companies that jumped on the synthetic oil bandwagon.



That doesnt make sense. What is a "Dino oil company"?
 
In the early to mid 70s Mobil 1 and Amsoil were the two main companies with a synthetic. Most of the other companies were poo pooing synthetics as not being viable.
Once they saw the profits they can make they jumped on the synthetic band wagon.

Some of them did not come out with sytnhetic until the late 80s or early 90s.
 
They aren't a peanut butter company trying to make synthetic oil. They are crude oil refiners making synthetic oil from crude. Both the "dino" and "synthetic" oils from these companies both comes from the same raw material. That is the core competency of refineries such as Mobil or Shell. Any finished product that starts with crude oil is one they should be in, consider being in, or consciously ignore.

I guess I don't understand your second post, you're asking why a company that refines oil into finished products would refine it into a new finished product. It would make more sense if these products were group 4 or 5 where they were made from a different raw material that these companies had no experience with.

For your original questions, I don't understand why people base their decisions on marketing. You're surronded by UOA's you can go through, and base decisions on what actually happens, not how effective marketing departments are.
 
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The question is silly. All of the base oils, synthetic or otherwise, are primarily produced by companies which produce a range of products. Even PAO synthetics start life as natural gas extracted by an energy company.

There are a small number of boutique oil marketers who only sell synthetic based motor oils, but so what? The size of the blending/marketing company tells you exactly nothing about the capabilities of a given product.
 
Syn oil is a total waste of money unless ther is a real need for the benefits to be appreciated. What is syn oil made from? Dino oil especially todays oils make the choice to run syn oil a hard one.
 
Dino oil being so good makes the choice difficult, I agree.

But there's always a sale where I get syn for ~3.00 a quart, sometimes less, and that makes it even harder. I'll go 7500 on syn, only 5000 on conventional, so the price is even closer to even (I assume 2 bucks a quart for conventional, and ignore the higher filter costs).
 
Originally Posted By: bepperb

For your original questions, I don't understand why people base their decisions on marketing. You're surronded by UOA's you can go through, and base decisions on what actually happens, not how effective marketing departments are.


You need to read Doug Hillary's article on UOA's.
 
Originally Posted By: oilboy123
In the early to mid 70s Mobil 1 and Amsoil were the two main companies with a synthetic. Most of the other companies were poo pooing synthetics as not being viable.
Once they saw the profits they can make they jumped on the synthetic band wagon.

Some of them did not come out with sytnhetic until the late 80s or early 90s.

Thanks for posting, My point excatly!
20 years ago every major petrolium oil company would spend money making false claims on the advantages of Synthetic oils.
Now they sell them!
 
Originally Posted By: lazaro
Thanks for posting, My point excatly!
20 years ago every major petrolium oil company would spend money making false claims on the advantages of Synthetic oils.
Now they sell them!

One reason is that Mobil was (and may still be) the only supplier of PAO base stock used in synthetics. They all had to buy their PAO from Mobil to be in the synthetic game.

Now that hydro-cracked mineral oil can be called synthetic, everyone can get into the act without benefiting Mobil, although some of the better synthetics still have some PAO in them.

With the increased demands on engine performance and fuel economy, synthetics are pretty much the future of motor oil.
 
Polyalfaolefin (PAO) Group IV base oil is mainly produced by ExxonMobil, ChevronPhillips (chemical company owned by Chevron and ConocoPhillips) and other petrochemical companies with names very familiar to everyone who buys motor oil.

Of course, the Group III "synthetic" base oil is just very highly refined petroleum.

Whether or not any synthetic oil lives longer in your engine depends on many factors, some related to the condition of your engine, some related to your driving. Oxidation of synthetic oil is slower, so the oil lives longer. The rate of depletion of the additives in the oil depends on the quality (cost) of the package in the first place and on engine condition. Syn oil will become contaminated with fuel, moisture, or combustion products just as fast as any other oil if those are present in abnormal quantities. In my engines syn oil still tests good after 10,000 miles of service. The very best grades of conventional base oil plus better (costlier) additive packages will also live longer than mass-market oils...and the cost is higher. Schaeffer conventional oil is probably good for 50% to 100% longer life than mass-market oils, their syn-blend 100% to 200% longer, and their full syn longer than that, all subject to lab testing. A few other brands do as well.
 
To make this more muddy.....

How about the Big Oil companies that sell oil additives under different company names. So is your best synthetic the best oil you carry. Or is it not good enough until you add Slick 50.
Or use our dino with Slick 50 that our subsidiary company markets for the best oil......which is it?

QUAKER STATE SUBSIDIARIES SETTLE FTC CHARGES AGAINST SLICK 50
Three subsidiaries of Quaker State Corp. have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that ads for Quaker State's Slick 50 Engine Treatment were

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/1997/07/slick.shtm
 
oilboy123 your hate for Slick 50, Quaker State, and Shell Oil Company in general is extremely outdated. You state your claims on what I call a voodoo product from the late 70's, early 80's. Shell has tried its best to sell the Slick 50 brand and could not so the first thing they did was to completely reformulate the product. The current Slick 50 does not have any PTFE in it. It's a 10W-30 carrier oil loaded with FM and AW additives. Plus they have taken the product out of their Quaker State HM oils.

But to go along with your scenario, I guess Valvoline is no good because they make an engine oil additive.

Please get with the times.

Now, as for as no other oil companies making synthetics back in the 70's and early 80's, there was not a big enough market for it. Don't think for a moment other oil companies did not know how to or were not capable of making synthetic oils. Talk about marketing phooey, trying to run down oil companies because they chose not to make synthetics back then is it.
 
Originally Posted By: Johnny
oilboy123 your hate for Slick 50, Quaker State, and Shell Oil Company in general is extremely outdated. You state your claims on what I call a voodoo product from the late 70's, early 80's. Shell has tried its best to sell the Slick 50 brand and could not so the first thing they did was to completely reformulate the product. The current Slick 50 does not have any PTFE in it. It's a 10W-30 carrier oil loaded with FM and AW additives. Plus they have taken the product out of their Quaker State HM oils.

But to go along with your scenario, I guess Valvoline is no good because they make an engine oil additive.

Please get with the times.

Now, as for as no other oil companies making synthetics back in the 70's and early 80's, there was not a big enough market for it. Don't think for a moment other oil companies did not know how to or were not capable of making synthetic oils. Talk about marketing phooey, trying to run down oil companies because they chose not to make synthetics back then is it.


I don't hate any of them. Where did I state all these company names with hate? Go ahead attack me if it makes you feel better.......

They were just stuck in the olden days and did not want to make syn oils, or they would have. At least Mobil 1 got on the bandwagon. All the big oil companies really have a conflict of interest with all the tiers of their product lines.

You must have a lot stock in Pennzoil??? Do you use Slick 50? If getting with the times means using these additives, I will stick to the old days..........
 
Heck no I don't use Slick 50 or any other additive. I thought Slick 50 was the scam of the 70's and 80's. Before Pennzoil bought Quaker State, I was glad they bought Slick 50 and had a field day with it. When Pennzoil bought Quaker State, that darn stuff came with the company and I never sold a drop of it. Pennzoil started changing the formulation as soon as they could and Shell completed the process. Now it's just an AW additive like all of the rest but the darn scamy name stays with them. I personally wish the product and all the rest of them would just go away so we can all stick with motor oil.

I apologize if you thought I was attacking you, that was not my intention.
 
I guess it's easy to take things wrong online. Probably works both ways. I thought you were attacking me, but maybe it was my imagination.

I tried to stir things up a little too much as well......
 
As long as you aren't Gecko45, I'm sure all is well.
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