Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
I appreciate your a huge M1 fan
I am sure I am not the only one on the board finding that statement, made by you, amusing in light of the time spent on this board extolling the virtues of TGMO
You are probably the world's largest TGMO fan. I likely wouldn't be out of line in stating that you regard it more highly than even Toyota does. You certainly spend more time marketing it.
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
but it is just one company and they make their own base oils.
Yes, and they also make TGMO. They are also probably the largest seller of 0w-20 PCMO's, so the fact that they are one company, in that light, makes them a bit more relevant.
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
Whether it costs them more to make AFE or TGMO we don't know
You just stated:
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
But make no mistake, the only reason SOPUS and most other aftermarket 0W-20 formulators have chosen not to go the very high VI route is because it's cheaper not to.
So which is it? A moment ago you stated that it is cheaper. Now you don't KNOW it is cheaper. But you THINK it is cheaper. And it probably IS cheaper to make the Group III 0w-20's than it is to make TGMO. It is also likely cheaper to make those same oils than it is to make AFE 0w-20 and especially EP 0w-20, which again, are probably more expensive to make than TGMO due to the base oils used.
The point is that this statement gets tossed around like TGMO costs some obscene amount of money to formulate and that's why other companies, including XOM, don't do it. But XOM spends even MORE money using expensive base oils in both of their 0w-20 products, which, instead of improving a the difference between a couple of warm temp viscosity numbers on paper actually means a genuine performance advantage in extremely cold temperatures.
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
but the rest of market is predominately GP III based and to make a high VI oil requires using a 4cSt base oil and very high VI PMA VIIs. To have an acceptable Noack GP III+ needs to be used.
It is simply easier as cheaper to use a heavier base oil and cheaper conventional polymer VIIs which is how most 0W-20 are formulated.
I'm sure you aren't intimately familiar with the formulation of all the 0w-20's on the market so this is an educated assumption with regards to formulation which you are stating as fact.
Originally Posted By: CATERHAM
And with the Shell Helix 0W-20 race oil you should be looking at the KV40 spec' of 35cSt which is way lower than the 45.8cSt of M1 and is in the same league as TGMO (36-37cSt), MGMO 35cSt and Sustina 0W-20 32.7cSt. You do remember that the KV100 spec' of an oil is largely affected by it's chemistry. These are all nominal HTHSV 2.6-2.7cP oils so the KV40 spec' gives a better indication of the degree of viscosity change with temperature.
Yes, and the insanely low temperature performance of an oil is also affected by its chemistry, particularly base oil performance, which is why M1 EP and AFE are pretty much "the best there is" in this area. VI tells you part of the story, CCS and MRV tell us another part. Whether your concern is how your oil performs in typical Canadian summer temps (VI) or Edmonton/Winnipeg winters (CCS/MRV) is where there seems to be some disparity. I have no use for a 0w-20 race oil, so by extension I don't care that it has a "sweet VI" of 183. What I DO care about is the fact that we are probably going to see -30C again this winter or colder and at those temperatures the two Mobil products, regardless of the fact that their VI's aren't "stratospheric", are going to perform better. Because they use better base oils. All the fairy dust in the world isn't going to change that fact.
They also happen to have a nice cross-section of manufacturer approvals too.
Congrats on a terrific obfuscation of the question; namely, the reason most 0W-20s are not high VI oils is because it IS cheaper to formulate a 0W-20 if all you're concerned about is meeting the requirements of a 0W-20 grade and have no concern for the other viscosity spec's such as KV40 and V.I..
And considering this thread is about Pennzoil I love how you've worked in your love fest for M1 0W-20. But since your brought it up, yes I am a fan of TGMO 0W-20 (and btw no other TGMO grade) because there is nothing better for the money for a 0W-20 application, specifically a Toyota. Plus the fact that Toyota Canada has chosen to price it very reasonably making it by far the best 0W-20 value in Canada.
But since you've made a big deal about M1's excellent extreme cold performance stat's, temp's most of us including myself have never seen and have no desire to, I would still prefer TGMO since it's a whopping 40% lighter at 0C (32F), a temp' I do routinely see during the winter. So how cold does it have to get before M1 has a relative advantage? I would say the crossover point is around -30C. How did I come up with that temp'? Sustina 0W-20 (a GP III+ oil which is also one of my favorite oils other than it's high price) has an MRV almost on par with M1 but it's CCS is better. It's 50% lighter than M1 at 0C vs only 40% for TGMO. So I think I'm being pretty conservative at pegging the crossover point for TGMO at -30C.
