Mutually exclusive standards and specifications

[alcyon]

As you all know, there are a multitude of oil companies around the world, and in my country there are at least 7 small players here.
Many of these companies do not say anything technical about their product other than saves fuel,withstands heat bla bla bla, you get the picture.
They are also in my book guilty of bombastic claims about their oil and seem to be listing every spec on the label, some of them seems mutually exclusive.
For instance claiming their 0W-30 meets and exceeds ILSAC GF-5 and ACEA A3/B4.aren't these 2 specifications at odds with each other?
What other standards that can't co exist together ?

 

[chrisri]

A3/H4, A5/B5, and C3. Found on some more obscure brands.

 

[SR5]

The API SN is pretty general and can be almost any other PCMO spec. The one exception is a higher Zinc oil in the ILSAC (xW-20 or xW-30) grades. In this case, it's usually API SL.

Where you often catch people streatching the truth, is claiming Euro ACEA specs.
For A5/B5 you want a HTHS of below 3.5 and a TBN of above 8.
For A3/B4 you want a HTHS of above 3.5 and a TBN of above 10.
In good name brands, most are either one or the other, but given that with the HTHS value "or equals 3.5" is allowed for both, you could possible make an oil that sits right on the fence.

The one that isn't possible, but I have seen claimed a few times is A3/B4 and C3. Both require a HTHS above 3.5 but the Sulphated Ash (SA) for C3 needs to be below 0.8, but for A3/B4 the SA is above 1.0 but below 1.6, so no overlap here, and it can't be both.

To me some specs can naturally go together, such as the resource conserving ones, so GF-5 and A5/B5 can make sense together. But GF-5 and A3/B4 is probably a cheat. However A3/B4 with MB229.5 or Porsche A40 would make sense.

 

[Jetronic]

A3/B4 is an integral part of MB229.5 approval, IIRC