Benefits of Conventional over Synthetic

[kschachn]

Yes it does. All automobile engine oil comes from the ground, including those that use PAO.

Originally Posted By: Nick1994
Originally Posted By: acme
What is "Dino Oil"? I see this once and a while, but don't understand. Synthetic and Non-Synthetic oil comes from the same barrel of oil. Synthetic oil not from anything else.
They do not come from the same barrel of oil

Dino oil is conventional oil. It comes from the ground, then is refined into what we use in our cars for conventional oil.

Synthetic oil is man-made. It does not come from the ground.

 

[Merkava_4]

You guys keep talking about scientific stuff on paper when the real benefit of full synthetic is in the way it makes the car feel. You're not gonna convince anybody to pay extra money for full synthetic by talking about scientific stuff.

 

[Nick1994]

Originally Posted By: kschachn
Yes it does. All automobile engine oil comes from the ground, including those that use PAO.


Thank you. I guess I was told wrong

 

[tig1]

Well doesn't everything come from the ground one way or another?

 

[Jiblet]

Synthesis to a chemist means creating a chemical bond.

In practice it means "growing" a molecule like a carbon chain by adding links to the chain.

If you start with a mixture like crude oil and clean it up (refine it) you end up with what people refer to as dino or mineral oil.

If you start with small precursor molecules and combine them to build up the molecules you want, then that is synthetic oil.

But highly refined oils get to be called "synthetic" for marketing purposes (in USA).

 

[Jiblet]

Originally Posted By: tig1
Well doesn't everything come from the ground one way or another?


ultimately, yes. (or at least from photosynthesis...)

Either ancient plant material turning into crude oil over the millenia.
Or living plants and animals making oils today.

Any carbon and hydrogen source can be turned into an oil.
It's not cost effective but the technology exists.

 

[Flareside302]

Originally Posted By: badtlc
Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
To the meat of the synthetic "my team" newbie defenders - If in the U.S. you have likely NOT been using a real synthetic oil - just an "advertised as" synthetic oil. So your touch point is a premium hydrotreated mineral oil not a synthetized lubricant based oil. That applies to you Royal purple guys too. Thank goodness, though, for RD Shell's Purebase and British Petrol's Castrol Edge with Ti being available at reasonable cost outlay.

- Jeepers, they are not American companies! ;(


Not sure if serious but RP uses PAO base.


RP does not use a pure PAO base. especially not on their API offering. even their HPS there's a fee of us that are pretty sure they don't on it either cause it shears badly.. the other specs like NOACK shows it may be a blend...

 

[badtlc]

Originally Posted By: Flareside302

RP does not use a pure PAO base. especially not on their API offering. even their HPS there's a fee of us that are pretty sure they don't on it either cause it shears badly.. the other specs like NOACK shows it may be a blend...


You'd be wrong.

 

[Flareside302]

then how does RP have such a high noack? why does it shear so badly? its not the same quality as a PAO based oil..

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: kschachn
Yes it does. All automobile engine oil comes from the ground, including those that use PAO.

Originally Posted By: Nick1994
Originally Posted By: acme
What is "Dino Oil"? I see this once and a while, but don't understand. Synthetic and Non-Synthetic oil comes from the same barrel of oil. Synthetic oil not from anything else.
They do not come from the same barrel of oil

Dino oil is conventional oil. It comes from the ground, then is refined into what we use in our cars for conventional oil.

Synthetic oil is man-made. It does not come from the ground.


POE doesn't necessarily have to come from the ground

Well, not from any form of crude anyways

 

[deven]

Originally Posted By: Flareside302
then how does RP have such a high noack? why does it shear so badly? its not the same quality as a PAO based oil..

Email them and ask them what base stocks they use. I just talked to Jim at Royal Purple who I have talked to numerous times before. He confirmed what he told me a couple years ago which was that all Royal Purple basestocks are made from a blend of Group IV and Group V oils(mainly used in their additive oil). The ONLY oil that doesnt have the above is their break-in-oil which is 100% conventional oil so that the rings seat optimally.
As for the NOACK, I can talk to Jim about it but I dont think I'll get too far with that question!

 

[tacoguy714]

Cold start-up isn't as effective and if you go double the oci, why pay for labor twice?

 

[jrustles]

Gr I to III is filthy crude "cleaned up" to varying degrees of purity and isomerized to the desired molecular structures

GTL/PAO/POE are truly synthesized by definition. They do not start off as dirty oil needing saturation to remove 'contaminants'. GTL's intermediate form, pure iso-wax, is created pure and from there can be fractioned off to the desired products. The product destined for automotive lube oil is then isomerized into whatever desires molecular structure.

That's the difference between the two, every process before fractioning and isomerization.



As an analogy, it's the difference between taking sewage water and filtering/treating it into potable water.

Let's say that's 'group 1'. Tap water.

Then one can take the gr1 tap water and run it through a Brita or other mild ion exchange/VOC filter. There's your 'group 2' water..

Then you take that, or the tap water and run it through a membrane (RO) that would be your GrIII+ etc. Highly filtered.

In either of those examples, one did not 'synthesize' water. They simply took filthy water, processed it and created three grades of water purity.

Then OTOH you have a laboratory, and through controlled chemical reactions, you create water from it's individual elements. That is truly 'synthesized' water. Nothing undesirable to clean up or sequester out of it. I'm sure there's a steam distillation example in here somewhere too

Both end products are water, the latter obviously being inherently cleaner since it was created pure.

I know the water example isn't entirely apt, considering a water molecule is a water molecule not heavy water, yet hydrocarbons vary in length and diversity The point is intended to illustrate the purity/cleanliness of the synthetic vs crude feedstocks to the finished product

 

[kschachn]

That's not completely accurate, hydrocracked synthetic oil is not "highly refined" nor is it made up from small precursor molecules.

Originally Posted By: Jiblet
Synthesis to a chemist means creating a chemical bond.

In practice it means "growing" a molecule like a carbon chain by adding links to the chain.

If you start with a mixture like crude oil and clean it up (refine it) you end up with what people refer to as dino or mineral oil.

If you start with small precursor molecules and combine them to build up the molecules you want, then that is synthetic oil.

But highly refined oils get to be called "synthetic" for marketing purposes (in USA).

 

[acme]

Originally Posted By: Nick1994
Originally Posted By: acme
What is "Dino Oil"? I see this once and a while, but don't understand. Synthetic and Non-Synthetic oil comes from the same barrel of oil. Synthetic oil not from anything else.


They do not come from the same barrel of oil

Dino oil is conventional oil. It comes from the ground, then is refined into what we use in our cars for conventional oil.

Synthetic oil is man-made. It does not come from the ground.





Hate to bust your bubble, but Synthetic and non-synthetic oil comes from a barrel of oil just like Kerosene, Diesel, Gasoline, Jet fuel, Grease ....etc.

"...Synthetic oil is a lubricant consisting of chemical compounds that are artificially made (synthesized). Synthetic lubricants can be manufactured using chemically modified petroleum components rather than whole crude oil, but can also be synthesized from other raw materials. Synthetic oil is used as a substitute for lubricant refined from petroleum when operating in extremes of temperature, because, in general, it provides superior mechanical and chemical properties to those found in traditional mineral oils..."

Look at Synthetic oil as a refined cleaner oil. They just swap out and move the molecules around. It all starts from a barrel of oil like the DINO oil myth. It's not the Obama Green oil stash he has.....

From EXPERTS 123....

"..One might get the idea that synthetic oil can be manufactured without any crude oil, but that is not the case. Synthetic oil is indeed created from refined crude oil, but according to a different manufacturing process which makes it possible to manipulate the oil on molecule level. The process makes it possible to design the characteristics of the fully synthetic oil, and to maintain the same characteristics over time. The synthetic oil contains no impurities and all molecules have the same size. Among other things, this means that the friction within the oil itself is lower. This improves operating economy, lower fuel consumption and reduces the impact on the environment..."


Always remember that Oil is Oil

 

[Clevy]

Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
To the meat of the synthetic "my team" newbie defenders - If in the U.S. you have likely NOT been using a real synthetic oil - just an "advertised as" synthetic oil. So your touch point is a premium hydrotreated mineral oil not a synthetized lubricant based oil. That applies to you Royal purple guys too. Thank goodness, though, for RD Shell's Purebase and British Petrol's Castrol Edge with Ti being available at reasonable cost outlay.

- Jeepers, they are not American companies! ;(



I saw something posted here within this past week from royal purples Facebook page and they state under no uncertain terms that their oils were formulated with group 4 and 5 only.
I cannot say whether they were referring to a specific line of their engine oils or all of them are since I only skimmed the first paragraph.

 

[Lex94]

Originally Posted By: tig1
Well doesn't everything come from the ground one way or another?


In physical reality, everything comes from the sun...From Hydrogen Fusion.

Hydrocarbons are created in the earth when carbonates and hydrogen get together via sun energy (google "Carbon Cycle"). Crude oil is "liquid sunshine".

Hydrocracking is like taking a long loaf of French bread and cutting it in slices. Where the loaf of bread occurred in nature and was not man-made...but the slices are.

 

[Brian Barnhart]

Originally Posted By: cookiemonster
Anyone here of the opinion that conventional oil is better than synthetics? and, why?


It’s quite obvious that, in general, synthetics are superior to conventional . Synthetics are clearly superior at the temperature extremes and are better at reducing engine deposits. As a result, synthetics can go longer between oil changes.

What’s not so clear is how close the current conventional oils are to synthetic in terms of performance. And when it comes to wear and fuel economy, I’m not sure synthetics offer any advantage when both are changed at appropriate intervals (though the 0W synthetics do offer a slight fuel economy advantage).

Conventional has come a long way in the last decade or so. I believe the best indicator of performance may very well be price. Twenty years ago OTC synthetics were 4X the price of conventional. Now they are closer to 1.5X.

Synthetics are superior in many ways, but no better in a few. In a car that doesn’t require synthetic, using synthetic anyway will allow longer OCI’s and will likely keep the engine cleaner.

Personally, my own practices vary. Some get mostly synthetic. Others get mostly conventional. My Cobra gets synthetic just because it’s “high performance”. But it’s not required and I’m not even convinced it’s money well spent since the OCI’s are not long.

My Sierra gets synthetic in the winter and conventional the rest of the time. I notice no difference in the running manners or noise between the two types of oil. The reason for running synthetic in the winter is two-fold. It is in an unheated garage and the synthetic may offer easier starting and better flow at start-up. Plus, the synthetic may do some extra cleaning at the same time.

My Liberty gets mostly synthetic because it gets the most use and some of it is severe service. Using synthetic allows more flexibility in change intervals. I prefer to do oil changes by the calendar and synthetic allows me to take a long trip without worrying about the extra miles during the OCI.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Originally Posted By: Clevy
Originally Posted By: ARCOgraphite
To the meat of the synthetic "my team" newbie defenders - If in the U.S. you have likely NOT been using a real synthetic oil - just an "advertised as" synthetic oil. So your touch point is a premium hydrotreated mineral oil not a synthetized lubricant based oil. That applies to you Royal purple guys too. Thank goodness, though, for RD Shell's Purebase and British Petrol's Castrol Edge with Ti being available at reasonable cost outlay.

- Jeepers, they are not American companies! ;(



I saw something posted here within this past week from royal purples Facebook page and they state under no uncertain terms that their oils were formulated with group 4 and 5 only.
I cannot say whether they were referring to a specific line of their engine oils or all of them are since I only skimmed the first paragraph.
In the past, The "street" product performance does not = the composition expectation. So, if it quacks like a duck ... . Phone conversations and farcebook postings are not validations in any sense. Just saying here - be cautious and conservative and do NOT go forward based solely on faith. As far as RACING formulations go (no API certs) even Lucas makes some outstanding true synthetic race oils - a venue where "bologna" claims will not be tolerated.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: acme




Hate to bust your bubble, but Synthetic and non-synthetic oil comes from a barrel of oil just like Kerosene, Diesel, Gasoline, Jet fuel, Grease ....etc.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel

Originally Posted By: Wikipedia
Direct conversion of coal to synthetic fuel was originally developed in Germany.[11] The Bergius process was developed by Friedrich Bergius, yielding a patent in 1913. Karl Goldschmidt invited him to build an industrial plant at his factory the Th. Goldschmidt AG (now known as Evonik Industries) in 1914.[12] The production began only in 1919.[13][citation needed]

Indirect coal conversion (where coal is gasified and then converted to synthetic fuels) was also developed in Germany by Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch in 1923.[11] During World War II, Germany used synthetic oil manufacturing (German: Kohleverflüssigung) to produce substitute (Ersatz) oil products by using the Bergius process (from coal), the Fischer–Tropsch process (water gas), and other methods (Zeitz used the TTH and MTH processes).[14][15] In 1931, the British Department of Scientific and Industrial Research located in Greenwich, England set up a small facility where hydrogen gas was combined with coal at extremely high pressures to make a synthetic fuel.[16]

The Bergius process plants were Nazi Germany's primary source of high-grade aviation gasoline, synthetic oil, synthetic rubber, synthetic methanol, synthetic ammonia, and nitric acid. Nearly one third of the Bergius production was produced by plants in Pölitz (Polish: Police) and Leuna, with 1/3 more in five other plants (Ludwigshafen had a much smaller Bergius plant[17] which improved "gasoline quality by dehydrogenation" using the DHD process).[15]


The Fischer-Tropsch process is currently what is being employed by Shell in producing their GTL base oils, which they use in their synthetic oil products.

There are also POE's (esters) which are used in jet oils (and some high performance race oils) which can be produced from organic sources like algae.