Valvoline Synpower Question

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What is the general consensus on this product? I have seen a few UOA's that looked pretty darned good (better than M1) on this oil. I have heard that it could be a Grp3 and PAO/Ester mix, but do not know. With the "free" rebate it could be an option. Wife drives a lot of short trips, some highway trips too; basically not the best environment for an oil to excel in so a syn is in order.
 
This product is postively mediocre. For free, it's a great deal, for $4.50/qt, look elsewhere. I prefer the Walmart house brand SuperTech "full" synth---the Group 3 stuff--- for $12 per 5qt jug over Valvo anyday. Hard to beat the value.
 
quote:

Originally posted by ToyotaNSaturn:
This product is postively mediocre. For free, it's a great deal, for $4.50/qt, look elsewhere. I prefer the Walmart house brand SuperTech "full" synth---the Group 3 stuff--- for $12 per 5qt jug over Valvo anyday. Hard to beat the value.

Why is it positively mediocre if it has produced good UOAs?
 
Of the off the shelf synthetics Mobil 1 has the lion's share of the market. Castrol in next. Everything else has such little market share, there isn't a lot of info.

The other syn's don't appear to sell very well, so there just isn't a lot of data. Hence, the rebates and promotions.

It might be very good, but they will have to get a big following with the promo's to get full price. It's much more that Havoline syn. Even Mobil 1 is cheaper at Wally's.
 
It's positively mediocre because of the high price. AutoZone had it for $4.79/qt. OUCH! SuperTech goes just as far for less than half the cost.

Is any Group 3 "synth" worth that price? Not so IMO. When GC or M1 can be had for the same price, why buy Valvo?
 
quote:

Originally posted by ToyotaNSaturn:
It's positively mediocre because of the high price. AutoZone had it for $4.79/qt. OUCH! SuperTech goes just as far for less than half the cost.

Is any Group 3 "synth" worth that price? Not so IMO. When GC or M1 can be had for the same price, why buy Valvo?


Why buy M1 if it produces only average UOAs? I don't care if it is group IV. I don't judge products by one single ingredient because I don't know how else the oil was formulated. There's lot more to an oil than just the base oil. If M1 is using a superior base oil but delivering inferior UOAs, that's tells me they are skimping somewhere else. It's the package that matters, not one ingredient.
 
quote:

Originally posted by ToyotaNSaturn:
It's positively mediocre because of the high price. AutoZone had it for $4.79/qt. OUCH! SuperTech goes just as far for less than half the cost.

Is any Group 3 "synth" worth that price? Not so IMO. When GC or M1 can be had for the same price, why buy Valvo?


I don't have the data on Valvo, but yes I think some Group III's may be worth the price.

Castrol Syntec 10W-40 and Amsoil XL-7500 might be ??? Some Euro oils??

The assumption that Group III base should be a certain price range or that a GpIV is always superior may not be always true.


I am still waiting to see evidence that Wally's Synthetic outperforms Pennzoil w/ Purebase, since we are talking over priced.

I'm not being mean, but we just don't have enough data to make a decision on any of this at this point.
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quote:

If M1 is using a superior base oil but delivering inferior UOAs, that's tells me they are skimping somewhere else.



How is M1 delivering inferior UOAs?? Please provide evidence where there wasn't mechanical interference (bad air filter, etc).

There's a handful of Synpower UOAs over in the UOA section, but many of them are 5w-40 (not a usual oil) and a real good GM V8 run. There's a whole lot more M1 UOAs, from marginal to exceptional to draw conclusions from...proving what haley10 said about the market conditions.
 
quote:

Originally posted by ToyotaNSaturn:

quote:

If M1 is using a superior base oil but delivering inferior UOAs, that's tells me they are skimping somewhere else.



How is M1 delivering inferior UOAs?? Please provide evidence where there wasn't mechanical interference (bad air filter, etc).

There's a handful of Synpower UOAs over in the UOA section, but many of them are 5w-40 (not a usual oil) and a real good GM V8 run. There's a whole lot more M1 UOAs, from marginal to exceptional to draw conclusions from...proving what haley10 said about the market conditions.


I put together a spreadsheet on VW 1.8T engines and have posted the aggregate stats across several brands of oils. Do a search. This is a very hard engine on oils because it has a 3.9 quart sump, turbo engine. Some people have managed to get 8-9000 miles using Synpwer with low wear numbers. Still haven't seen a bad report of Synpower yet in this engine. Wear metals lower than M1 too. About the only negative about Synower is that the 5w-40 shears to a high 30 weight, but then again, so does M1 0w-40. Except you get the higher iron counts too.
 
My '95 Civic ran on a number of oils (mostly Mobil 1), for 130,000 miles with ZERO consumption with most of them.

The ONLY oil that would start to burn off was Synpower 5W30 ... at about the 4,000 mile mark.
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I used Red Line oil and the consumption slowly returned to zero then Schaeffer and Pennzoil hgih mileage and consumption never returned.

Never did a UOA on this stuff.

--- Bror Jace
 
A UOA does not show the sludge in a motor. If it's going to end up a 30w, why not just start with a 30w to begin with that stays in grade? For the same money I think GC or M1 T&SUV is a better oil.
 
I used the 5w-40 a few times, before BitOG.
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Who knows? It's A3-rated and I think it might have been formulated for BMW NA at some point...in the past. A3 sounds lke 1998 to me.
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Consumption was kinda high for a Euro 5w-40.
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For our Volvo 850 turbo, Synpower cut consumption approximately in half over M1 0w-40. Even the 10w-30 synpower leaked at a slower rate than the M1.

I'm certainly not saying there aren't better oils out there than Synpower. In fact, I don't even use it anymore. The point is, sometimes there are strong negative statement made about certain products with little evidence to back it up. People can criticize any product all they want - just show us the data or the study to back it up.
 
quote:

Originally posted by jthorner:

quote:

This product is postively mediocre

Based on what information?

John


Exactly. Blanket statements about certain products and brands without any supporting evidence is not helpful. So far this oil has produced good UOAs, with few if any bad ones in healthy engines. I think the burden of proof is now on those that want to bash it.
 
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The couple comparative UOA's I've seen, it's been a while, show it to be nearly as good as M1. Thing is, the Valvo is Grp III while M1 is PAO and the M1 is generally cheaper. At least here Wally-World only carries the Synpower in 5 qt jugs in 10w-30, if you need any other weight you have to buy quarts, so a jug of M1 ends up costing less. I do have Synpower running in my mom's car, it calls for 10w-30 and it needed changed over the winter when Wally-World temporarily spiked the price of M1. Mom's Caddy N* takes 7.5 quarts plus it burns a lot, therefore I need two jugs so I saved about $8 getting the Valvoline.
 
If the word is correct, that the BMW 5-40 previously made was sourced from Valv. Synpower 5-40, then this is one good oil.

I used to go 10k OCI's with 1/2qt. consumption and a clean engine. I would have continued using it and would try it again if it was ever available in Canada....only the 5-30 and 10-30.
 
I plan to run the free (yeah I finally got my rebate check) Synpower 10w30 in wife's Aerostar 3.0. It is using 1 qt of 10w30 Maxlife every 1500 miles (not Maxlife's fault, was doing it with 5w30 Durablend too) and the Synpower has a much higher flashpoint so I suspect consumption will go way down.

[ July 26, 2004, 12:49 PM: Message edited by: TallPaul ]
 
I just looked at the MSDSs for Synpower and the 20w50 is PAO!

The 30 weights are Group III:
5w30: CAS 64742-54-7 (52-62%)
10w30: CAS 64742-54-7 (53-63%)

But look at the 20w50 MSDS:
20w50: CAS 68037-01-4 (65-75%). MolaKule just had a thread on CAS numbers showing this one to be PAO. I wonder if PAO is cheaper in the larger size molecules of a 20w50?

But what I really want to know is what the 5w40 Synpower is comprised of and the MSDS dosen't list any oil type for it.
 
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