Interesting video comparing expensive and cheap synthetic oil with mineral oil

No mention of the ACEA rating which nowadays is very important.

My FIL has told me about the oil abrasion tesing machine and that travelling oil/additive reps used it when he was an apprentice and hes now 83, so maybe just maybe its not that relevant anymore?
 
lynallbel said:
No mention of the ACEA rating which nowadays is very important.

My FIL has told me about the oil abrasion tesing machine and that travelling oil/additive reps used it when he was an apprentice and hes now 83, so maybe just maybe its not that relevant anymore?
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I believe that abrasion testing rigs are still an integral part of oil development and approval. The same guy has also done several videos testing various oil additives including testing to destruction in real engines. His conclusion is that, as we all suspected, they are snake oil. :ambivalence:

Richard
 
The conclusive test of engine oil is in vehicle engines in real life.
The trouble with cheap brands is you don't know where it comes from, or whether two batches will come from the same place.
I don't economise on oil.
My bike has racked up a fair mileage without needing the valves re-shimming.
I might have saved a few quid on cheaper oils, but that doesn't go far in parts or labour.

My car is quite high mileage now, but still capable of a ton on any main road hill, gives good MPG and flew through the MoT emissions tests. Paying £45 for oil every year instead of say £20 is a bargain for knowing I've done my best to avoid it blowing up, wearing out or failing the emissions.

There are a lot of variants of 'Mobil 1', but it's pretty old hat in the 'synth' stakes these days. Some synth oil is very much like mineral oil from a chemical point of view, some is not. I used to buy Mobil 1 about 25 years ago.
 
Puhleeese someone jump in and tell me why it wasn't a massive waste of time and money me running round every chandlery and marine mechanic' s outlet in the Balearics and Costa Blanca looking for a proper mineral oil as specified by Yanmar for my 3GM30 (40€ for 5L) when the 18€ synthetic one that I bought in the meantime, promising myself to change it every 50 hours as penance, will do just as well, if not better.

I mean, it says API CF4 on the label, same as the Yanmar one at twice the price, and the mechanic in the fishing port chandlery-cum-repair shop in Cartegena said it was mineral (well, he agreed with me when I asked '¿eso es mineral, no sintetico?', which Yanmar specifies. It also says, if my limited Spanish is correct, that it's suitable for high revving petrol engines and turbo charged diesel engines, though the guy in the shop was recommending it for low chugging engines like my 3GM30. I'm a bit skeptical, tbh.

For context, a few weeks ago I got some water in the cylinders through the exhaust, so quickly did 2 oil changes with cheap oil just to help flush out any remaining water. But I've still got a third change of the cheap oil in the engine. And, really, won't it be OK for 100 hours or so?

I'm planning to save the expensive Yanmar oil until I get back to my winter berth and do another change then. And then throw that away after 50 hours when I do an oil change next spring before going off cruising again ☹

I feel a return to Vyv Cox' s brilliantly informative website coming on, to give me some backbone to work harder at finding in Spain the appropriate engine oil, but maybe this time at less than 40€ for 5L.
 
differentroads said:
Puhleeese someone jump in and tell me why it wasn't a massive waste of time and money me running round every chandlery and marine mechanic' s outlet in the Balearics and Costa Blanca looking for a proper mineral oil as specified by Yanmar for my 3GM30 (40€ for 5L) when the 18€ synthetic one that I bought in the meantime, promising myself to change it every 50 hours as penance, will do just as well, if not better.

I mean, it says API CF4 on the label, same as the Yanmar one at twice the price, and the mechanic in the fishing port chandlery-cum-repair shop in Cartegena said it was mineral (well, he agreed with me when I asked '¿eso es mineral, no sintetico?', which Yanmar specifies. It also says, if my limited Spanish is correct, that it's suitable for high revving petrol engines and turbo charged diesel engines, though the guy in the shop was recommending it for low chugging engines like my 3GM30. I'm a bit skeptical, tbh.

For context, a few weeks ago I got some water in the cylinders through the exhaust, so quickly did 2 oil changes with cheap oil just to help flush out any remaining water. But I've still got a third change of the cheap oil in the engine. And, really, won't it be OK for 100 hours or so?

I'm planning to save the expensive Yanmar oil until I get back to my winter berth and do another change then. And then throw that away after 50 hours when I do an oil change next spring before going off cruising again ☹

I feel a return to Vyv Cox' s brilliantly informative website coming on, to give me some backbone to work harder at finding in Spain the appropriate engine oil, but maybe this time at less than 40€ for 5L.
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The problem is that you'll find almost as many opinions about oil as there are forumites. :(

For context, I changed the oil in my Yanmars last week after 4 years and several hundred hours ..... but I only changed it to use up the last of my supply of semi-synthetic 15W-40 because I will be switching over to fully synthetic 15W-40 now that it is freely available. I'll probably be changing that every 5 years or so depending on how it holds up. The oil recommended by Yanmar is a mineral 15W-40 but there's no way I'm using that rubbish. :)

Richard
 
differentroads, easy. Assurance. As lw395 points out, it's true that a cheap brand can be very similar (heck it can be produced by the same company) but it's hard to tell whether it's the same supplier from one month to the next. With the specific brand you are getting the same thing every time. To be fair, the 'brand' is not important, the 'grade' is. The manufacturer will generally state what is best for the engine but do check if they have a tie in deal somewhere where they get a cut of the profits.

It might be worth checking with an independent engine specialist (i.e. not here) as to which oil would be suitable and which would be best. As long as you properly check and change your oil regularly you should be okay. Do make sure to check and change the oil as per the recommendations. It's always handy to have a list of alternative oils you can use and how you have to adjust your schedule in case you can't find the one you want.
 
lw395 said:
There are a lot of variants of 'Mobil 1', but it's pretty old hat in the 'synth' stakes these days. Some synth oil is very much like mineral oil from a chemical point of view, some is not. I used to buy Mobil 1 about 25 years ago.
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I started using Mobil 1, the first fully synthetic oil available in the UK, when it became available in the 1970's. You're right that many other companies have released synthetic oils since then but Mobil have also released many modern variations and, it could be argued, that Mobil's experience is greater than anyone else's.

Additive formulations are improving and developing every year and I would expect that Mobil's progress is as good, or better than, the rest. Most of the oil companies are using base oil synthesised from mineral oil stock. However, the latest technique is to synthesise the base from non-oil components. Whether this is any better I don't know but it's still in a minority.

I still use often one of the Mobil variants in my older GT car although I used Petronas last time. However, oil changes in this car are usually every two or three years because of the low mileage. I tend to use Halfords synthetic or similar in the Estate. My latest car requires a rather special oil because of the recommended 25,000 miles/24 months oil change period so I've used Castrol Edge and now I'm topping up Mobil ESP. I'll probably use this same oil in my Wife's very high compression engine roadster but this grade is rather expensive to buy and it's not helped by the fact that the new car needs over 8 litres of the damn stuff. :ambivalence:

Richard
 
Be careful about choosing your oil. It can be critical. I’ve have had a powered aircraft for over 20 years and during period of time I have seen the recommended oils list shrink and shrink until there is really only one left, a Shell semi synthetic. The otherwise perfectly good oils from good brands and with seemingly identical rating specs, but which were cut off the list have actually been responsible for engine failures. Other aircraft engines specify only straight grade pure mineral oils with no flexibility.

Pure synthetics don’t clean and cope with the high lead aviation fuels very well, they are often designed for tight tolerance engines and so some engines don’t suit synthetic oil as the film thickness is too low. It compromises engine design tolerances and causes more wear rather than less, which is the opposite of what you might expect given the high lab test scores. Marine engines, particularly older ones are in this category. I am conservative and careful in my choice of oil for all my various engines.
 
differentroads said:
Puhleeese someone jump in and tell me why it wasn't a massive waste of time and money me running round every chandlery and marine mechanic' s outlet in the Balearics and Costa Blanca looking for a proper mineral oil as specified by Yanmar for my 3GM30 (40€ for 5L) when the 18€ synthetic one that I bought in the meantime, promising myself to change it every 50 hours as penance, will do just as well, if not better.
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Within a couple of hours of running after I topped up my 1GM10 with semi-synthetic oil consumption had risen from "never needs topped up" to "top to bottom mark in under two hours" and stayed that way until I bought some proper CD stuff, after which the top-up interval rose erratically to ten hours.

Correlation does not indicate causation, of course. Might have been two coincidences.
 
Many moons ago when syns first became avaialble for truck engines we were told to use it, so we did, oh dear oil consumption was almost funny, the engine failure after failure was not so funny!
Straight back on the mineral and all was good again.
 
lynallbel said:
Many moons ago when syns first became avaialble for truck engines we were told to use it, so we did, oh dear oil consumption was almost funny, the engine failure after failure was not so funny!
Straight back on the mineral and all was good again.
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The large number of warnings on classic car forums against switching to synthetics is based on hard-earned experience. I cannot explain it, as I have very good experience of the improvements that synthetics bring to industrial equipment, big compressors and gas turbines in particular.

The commentary in the video must be one of the most annoying I have ever heard!
 
vyv_cox said:
The large number of warnings on classic car forums against switching to synthetics is based on hard-earned experience. I cannot explain it, as I have very good experience of the improvements that synthetics bring to industrial equipment, big compressors and gas turbines in particular.

The commentary in the video must be one of the most annoying I have ever heard!
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I believe a lot of the isues with 'classic' vehicles are related to changing from one oil to another.
Depending on what you mean by 'classic' of course.
An engine that's been in use for years will have various dirt, wear products, breakdown products from the oil stuck to the insides.
Change the oil for a different chemsitry and some of this might become mobile again.
It's not helpful when people mention 'straight' oils without being clear whether they are talking about SAE monogrades or non-detergent oils. Or both! Changing from a non-detergent oil to detergent can be disastrous in e.g. 60s motorbikes which don't even have proper oil filters.
Then there's issues from people having used castor oil in the past....
 
Zing said:
Be careful about choosing your oil. It can be critical. I’ve have had a powered aircraft for over 20 years and during period of time I have seen the recommended oils list shrink and shrink until there is really only one left, a Shell semi synthetic. The otherwise perfectly good oils from good brands and with seemingly identical rating specs, but which were cut off the list have actually been responsible for engine failures. Other aircraft engines specify only straight grade pure mineral oils with no flexibility.
Click to expand...

The same Youtube guy compares a motor oil against a speciality oil for jet engines. The very high and very low temperature performance of the jet oil is amazing ..... however, it would be disastrous to use it in an internal combustion engine. :(

Richard
 
RichardS said:
.............. The same guy has also done several videos testing various oil additives including testing to destruction in real engines. His conclusion is that, as we all suspected, they are snake oil. :ambivalence:

Richard
Click to expand...

I can believe that of Aftermarket additives but those formulated for OE have defined and established benefits, or they wouldn't have been added.

Oil company technical representatives typically form part of the extended engine development team at any manufacturer, as do Chemists, Rubber Technologists and, of course, salt-of-the-earth mechanical engineers.

It's not unusual for an engine development program to last 5 years. One of the reasons that engine makers recommend only one, or a limited, range of oils is simply that the engine has not been tested with different oils, it's too expensive to test and approve oil variants. It's easier and safer (for the engine maker) to recommend the spec that's been used throughout testing. Anything else is a potential risk.

You can put any oil that you want in an engine, providing that you're prepared to accept the consequences. I've read of people adding cooking oil, in desperation. Personally, I'll stick to the OEM recommendation.
 
davidjackson said:
I can believe that of Aftermarket additives but those formulated for OE have defined and established benefits, or they wouldn't have been added.
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I'm talking about aftermarket additives as you can't realistically buy OEM oil without the manufacturer's additives.

Have you tried the device with plastic cogs and Lucas Oil Stabiliser in one side but not in the other? I try it every time I visit my trade motor factors as it's both fascinating and convincing. However, what really happens at proper engine speeds is something called aeration, and the more air in the oil, the less effective it is at reducing friction. :(

This is the exact device and you can see how good it looks in action:


Richard
 
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