100%
I think everyone is a snob in at least one thing.
I drive a Lexus because they are likely the most well-made car out there, not for status. For that I drive my 1986 Chevy Truck!
Reasons NOT to use Kirkland 0w-20 or 5W-30 Synthetic...?
- Thread starter silversport
- Start date
I think everyone is a snob in at least one thing.
I drive a Lexus because they are likely the most well-made car out there, not for status. For that I drive my 1986 Chevy Truck!
I am not knocking the brand at all. But its unlikely that it is better made than any other vehicle. I did just out of curiosity google it and didn't find the brand "special". Could you enlighten me on "why"? Again..not being argumentative.
HPL has group III base oil for some of it's blends, but that is fine, because regardless of the base oil, all HPL oils have the added Group V Ester and AN as well.
Last edited:
Toyota / Lexus in general design their cars to go 300k miles with minimal repairs.
They also have very conservative (aka boring) styling, but perhaps that helps them focus most of their time on the extensive quality assurance they do so their vehicles last 300k miles.
I view Toyota / Lexus as the opposite of Mercedes. Mercedes puts all their emphasis on styling, but their quality assurance doesn't seem to translate into reliable Mercedes vehicles. Mercedes (and BMW too) seem to make many of their partsout of cheap plastic which they know will brake after a few years. So you could sped $100,000 on a new Mercedes, only to find out that most of it's critical parts are made of cheap plastic and prone to breaking after a few years, costing you thousands to repair parts there weren't made correctly to begin with.
The only think I don't like about Lexus, Acura, and Infinity, is they require you to buy premium fuel, which could add $15 extra to every tankful. Might not sound like a lot, but over a few decades of ownership, it will really add up to several thousands of dollars extra.
From what I've read, 99% of all synthetic oils are group III. Only Redline, HPL are Group V, and Amsoil is Group IV (PAO).
I prefer GTL oils (Ex Pennzoil Platinum) to PAO oils, as PAO oils have been known to shrink oil seals which can cause oil leaks.
If anyone has a list of which Mobil 1 oils contain PAO (Group IV) or Esthers / ANs (Group V), please post it.
Patman
Staff member
It changes often enough that these lists would need to be updated frequently. M1 is constantly tweaking the ingredients in their base oils.
I'm not sure if all of them do, but yes, many times they tune the engines to require premium. Even times when they use the same engine as a Toyota (like the 2UZ-FE) they will tune it differently.
Group III only? I thought that in order to be a synthetic it needed more than just group III.
Let me correct my statement, they're the best of what Subaru had (has) to offer compared to the made in Indonesia or USA (Fram rebranded) filters. I'm good with using them, I'll make sure and do the 6mo OCI as I just don't drive much. But again, when I do I make sure to bring the engine to NOT no matter what. And my drive thru the "hood" to my garage is ~ .6 mile so nice easy slow going for both leaving for my drive, and coming home as well. Let that turbo get some easy time! Thanks much.
There was a lawsuit decades ago, where Castrol was the first company to call a group III oil synthetic.
Mobil 1 at the time had PAO's and Ester's in their synthetics, and Mobil 1 sued Castrol and lost.
The judge ruled Castrol had proved that group III went through enough transformations from Dino oil to have it's molecules more aligned, and could be called synthetic. At that point, Mobil 1 was in a position where their competitor could produce the Group III oil so much cheaper than Mobil 1's PAO / Ester synthetics, that Mobil 1 had to cheapen it's synthetic's to group III to be competitive. Ever since then, nearly all synthetic oil is group III (which is a bad thing for consumers in my opinion).
Why? Because group 3 is fundamentally worse than group 4?
There was no lawsuit. This has been discussed multiple times on here. No judge ruled anything.
And the technical part of your description isn’t correct either. Castrol wasn’t the first to call hydrocracked base stock as synthetic. Mobil and others were doing it too, all over the world.
This story about a lawsuit and a judge and what Castrol did and did not do just keeps being misrepresented year after year.
Really? You forgot the discussion in this thread where you participated?
Good grief BITOG old posts are hard and annoying to read. Whatever change they made in recent years broke all the old quoting functionality. Terrible design decision.
Nice post. Thanks.