What is the point of semi?

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daz

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some seem to think dino is good for whatever reason, but most say synthetic is better. Whats the point of blends of the 2?
 
Originally Posted By: BGK
I think semi synthetic oil is a gimmick and it will eventually fade from the market.


I think its going the exact OPPOSITE way - a lot of 'conventional' oils, especially with the advent of SN/GF-5, are going to become synthetic blends.

C-P oils, some Pennzoil grades, and Petro-Canada 'conventional' oils are already group II/III blends. It will only continue.
 
Semi was designed for people who don't want to spend top dollar for synthetic, but still want that warm fuzzy feeling when they pour oil into their engine.
 
That seems odd in that the semi my dealer uses and swears by is as expensive as synth. Well, this does it for me.....i'm going to M1 Vtwin. remember my thread asking whether i should go with M1 or amsoil instead of using the free torco semi my dealer offered me all the way to 90k on my new bike? well, i don't care about the money. I want less wear and best performance so i'm going with M1. I once tried valvoline dino bike oil and my bike literally seemed to lose about 10% of it's power. Put M1 back in and it felt like i modded the bike. So yeah, i'm going full synth if thats the only reason semi is made.
 
The thing about synth blends,is that they`re not really "synthetics". Just dino oil with a tiny bit of tweaked grp III dino oil added. The M1 VTwin like daz mentioned is supposed to be a helluva strong oil! Lots of zddp. Cafe can`t control motorcycle oil. Some people use motorcycle oil in their flat tappet muscle cars because of the high zddp content.
 
Figures. All the more reason to go back to M1 V twin. In fact, i'm changing it asap. I bet the bike runs stronger and cooler.

Hey, anyone here have opinions as to how effective or not those oil filter magnets are?
 
It depends what the oil blender wanted to do. The choices range from using cheap, low grade conventional oil and cheap, low grade Group III "full synthetic" to just meet spec but with a marketing ploy. Or, it could be very good conventional plus very good syn to give a superior oil at a moderate price.

I think ConocoPhillips syn blends are an example of the former. Schaeffer's synthetic blends are an example of the latter.

BP's Castrol Act>evo X–tra 4T is one popular syn blend motorcycle oil. It is good stuff, but I don't know if it is worth its cost.
 
Originally Posted By: daz

Hey, anyone here have opinions as to how effective or not those oil filter magnets are?


i have 9+ years of opinion.

1) it must be a rare earth magnet ie neodymium

2) it will only pull iron. it cannot pull any other metal. not aluminum, not magneseium, not titanium, not uranium235 and certainly not plutonium238. nor will it convert lead into gold.

3) BIGGER is better. size is everything. no really, ask your wife. i double dog dare you!

4) if you have a flywheel that has a magentic pickup AND a shared sump. it will catch a LOT more than some drain bolt will. however, much much harder to clean.
 
Syn blends are a marketing gimmick. Ok you have a 30,000 gallon tank of Mobil 5000 and add one gallon of Mobil1 and voila! You now have Mobil 5000 Synthetic blend. Price it $1.00 more a quart and add a cool label and you just squeezed another $120k out of that 30,000 gallon vat.
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Perfect scam as the laws defining synthetic oil are very loosely defined and as far as I know there are no laws regulating synthetic blends.

But I bet they do bring in an exceptional profit margin.
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Rarely would you ever see a true 50/50 split, so yes if that's the test of whats fair and whats a scam I can see the point. It could be 50/50 if both base oils were available in the same viscosity and had the same VI for the desired finished product (unlikely). BUT, what would be the point in blending them if they had the same properties? The ripoff here would be an implied performance improvement purely from the word synthetic on the label.

Since base oils usually don't match up like that and are blended to the desired viscosity and performance a split of something other than 50-50 is needed, usually 70-30 in semi's. Of course the 30 will be the more expensive component, but it may cost as much as the cheaper 70 depending on what's used.
 
The way I understand semi-synthetic oils is that, especially if the synthetic component is an ester, is that the synthetic part of the oil bonds to the metal parts and does the yeomen's part of the critical lubrication, the dino part is for normal boundary lubrication. In the case of engine oil, the oil is better than the weakest link(dino), it actually performs very nearly as good as a full synthetic oil. I have also heard many speak of the lubricity of dino oils being somehow superior to full synth oils. Semi-synthetic oils make perfect sense to me and I have had good UOAs with them.
 
Hmmm... thats a very simple reason that i guess i never really though of because it's so simple ! But it does make sense that no matter how much better one is than the other, chances are good that the lesser oil, say dino, may have certain desirable qualities that synth doesn't. Therefore a blend could be used to get the best qualities of each where going with straight dino or synth might be lacking in certain area/areas. Good reasoning. I think that post just helped me decide to go with motul blend. thanks. Oh, and i found a local place that sells it for about the same as i was paying for m\M1 V twin by buying in in 1 gallon jugs.
 
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