Please help me understand...

[olefam]

Hi,
I'm new to this forum and have a couple of questions.
First, so many of the members here seem to prefer conventional petroleum oil to synthtics. Why? Aren't syn oils better in virtually every way except perhaps cost?
Also, when it comes to syn oils I am under the impression that PAO base stock oils such as Mobil 1 and Amsoil are superior to "super refined" conventional oils such as the Valvoline, Castrol and Pennzoil products, among others. Is this generally true?
Finally, does anyone know if WalMart's house brand synthetic is a PAO or petroleum base?
Thank you.
Glen

 

[Bob Woods]

Finally, does anyone know if WalMart's house brand synthetic is a PAO or petroleum base?
Thank you. Glen

PAO is a petroleum product.

Can't find current MSDS pages for Walmart products. So I don't know. I wish the feds would require that oil companies list on each can of oil the percentage of PAO's.

 

[The Critic]

Not necessairly. A well-formulated GrpIII synthetic can outperform a PAO based synthetic, but it may still lack some of the high-temp advantages that a PAO has. Such an example is Amsoil XL 5w-20, which performs quite well and sometimes better than the M1 line.

I'm not sure if this is a good example, but try looking at it this way: You can have a car with a powerful V8, but the car is substantially lacking in other aspects. (i.e. lacks refinement, unreliable, poor quality, etc). Then, you have a car with a V6 but is quite well-rounded. (excellent quality, refined, etc) Which one is the better car overall? Of course the well-rounded car with the V6 in this case, even though it may have less power. (think of the engines as the basestock here)

 

[texasproud]

My impression is that in general terms, a synthetic is better than conventional oil at the extremes. The key is to determine if your climate, driving style and OCIs make it good economic sense for you to use synthetic.

I believe I read somewhere that S/T syn was a group III by WPP.