Second Teir Sythentics

[FutureDoc]

Originally Posted By: Trav
Originally Posted By: Clevy
Dnewton ran supertech conventional in his wife's villager for 15000 miles iirc and the used oil analysis showed nothing out of the ordinary.
So if that's second tier then tier 1 should last well in excess of that.


It wouldn't, all the wear metals are probably stuck in the deposits. LOL Not kidding!
I don't believe that no matter who claims it. I was born at night but not last night.


All of metals are in the deposits? All?

I have not seen this UOA (link please!), but not all miles are equal so a 99% highway road-trip is not completely unreasonable for this oil but 10K would be tops for me on this oil. Heck, I have seen some "way-to-long" UOA that were better than expected and "normal" but all miles are not equal so...

 

[Trav]

No not all but from what i have seen with dino using long OCI its very common to have deposit and varnish issues. These deposits will certainly contain some wear metals.

5K seems to be the max for dino, later model GM and Ford OLM algorithm is based on semi synthetics AFAIK Neither even offer a convention oil now.
As you say all miles are not the same but the most of the cars i service see mixed driving.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/1570877/1

On the car that had 15K dino OCI it would be interesting to see what the UOA would look like when running an oil with decent cleaning abilities afterwards.
I suspect the wear metals would be much higher.

 

[FutureDoc]

Unfortunately a lot of fleets (including mine) are being forced into a 7.5K OCI and I was lucky to find a syn-blend on contract... but not every agency can do it. It is a catch 22 for us. We are not allowed to pay for syn/synblend for our older fleet vehicles (only vehicles spec-ed for it) use but we are mandated at 7.5K for all vehicles.

So, if anyone wants a test fleet...

 

[Kuato]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: Kuato
I did a test with ST Syn 5w30, it did as well as M1, Amsoil and VWB at 5000 miles.


What were your criteria?


Sufficient TBN retention

Staying in grade

Wear metals(this is less important but all were within 1-2 ppm)

 

[zpinch]

Originally Posted By: FutureDoc
Originally Posted By: laserred96gt
I'd rate synthetic oils like this.
1. Amsoil, Redline, Royal Purple etc.
2. Pennzoil, Castrol, Valvoline, Mobil 1 etc.
3. ST, Peak, Havoline, Mobil Super and all the store brands.


Ummmm, No. (and this is the fun part of BITOG)

1a. Amsoil, Redline
1aa. M1 EP, Pennzoil Ultra
2. Basically every major brand and most store brands.
3. Odd-balls but you have to be specific and Lucas

Ha! Valvoline Syn as a "#2" along with Pennz and M1... it is definitely a step back... two if you go with the PU or M1EP. Heck, when you put RP (assuming API version), Valvoline, and "store brands" such as Napa on different tiers, that raised an eyebrow (as they often test out to be about the same). I would not consider them all that different. When you are setting up tiers, there has to be some measurable difference that equates into a usable advantage. Is M1 EP, M1 AFE, regular M1 on different tiers? The there would be four tiers if you add in Mobil Super. Just a blanket statement that "store brands" are third tier would be also absurd. Sure, most are nothing special but a few are surprisingly decent. To be a "tier" there has to be a real difference in some clearly quantifiable way... such as extended oil change intervals etc.

And Havoline is not "third tier".... not listening, lalalalala

I would agree with Royal Purple not being a top tier oil, everything I have seen about RP has been not very impressive. I personally use AMSOIL Signature Series.

 

[dgunay]

Originally Posted By: laserred96gt
I'd rate synthetic oils like this.
1. Amsoil, Redline, Royal Purple etc.
2. Pennzoil, Castrol, Valvoline, Mobil 1 etc.
3. ST, Peak, Havoline, Mobil Super and all the store brands.


I'd rate like this


1. Amsoil, Redline, Motul
2. Mobil 1, Royal Purple, Castrol, Shell (Pennzoil etc.), Valvoline
3. The others.

 

[147_Grain]

1. Amsoil Signature Series / Redline / Motul
2a. Mobil 1 EP / Pennzoil Ultra Platinum / Castrol Edge (Gold Bottle)
2b. TGMO / MGMO / Sustena
3. Mobil 1 / Pennzoil Platinum / Valvoline SynPower / Castrol Edge (Black Bottle)
4. Royal Purple
5. All other brands.

 

[Merkava_4]

This thread keeps getting better and better. Royal Purple has been reduced to 4th Tier status.

 

[A_Harman]

Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
This thread keeps getting better and better. Royal Purple has been reduced to 4th Tier status.

Oh Lord, not again!

 

[fdcg27]

Glad you showed up, since I was going to refer to your UOA and VOA posts of Meijer syn.
I'll be putting a jug of the 5W-20 flavor in the Focus on the first decent day in the next week.
I'll do a couple of runs and UOA the second just for grins.
For the cars most of us drive and the OCIs most of us run, I doubt that there'd be any detectable difference in engine wear, engine deposits or UOA metals between any of these arbitrary tiers of synthetic oil.

 

[zpinch]

Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Glad you showed up, since I was going to refer to your UOA and VOA posts of Meijer syn.
I'll be putting a jug of the 5W-20 flavor in the Focus on the first decent day in the next week.
I'll do a couple of runs and UOA the second just for grins.
For the cars most of us drive and the OCIs most of us run, I doubt that there'd be any detectable difference in engine wear, engine deposits or UOA metals between any of these arbitrary tiers of synthetic oil.


Well, I guarantee you will be able to detect the difference in wear between generally what the tiers or grades of oils people have posted. Detectable, my definition would be a UOA, noticeable would be subjective and up to the end consumer... what engine it is in, the health of the engine, driving habits, conditions the engine is in.

The biggest difference, IMO, between a top grade oil, say Amsoil Sig. Series, vs a less expensive oil like TGMO (albeit still good) is anti wear additives, in particular start-up wear protection, simply because of the low temp flow properties and the additives like tri-nulcear Moly used in Amsoil.

 

[zpinch]

Texas Refinery Corp is another I completely forgot about, and is worthy of being up top, I would say as good, or maybe better than Amsoil in most conditions.

 

[dgunay]

Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
This thread keeps getting better and better. Royal Purple has been reduced to 4th Tier status.

At least, it is still not considered as "the others"

 

[Camprunner]

A few years ago I put 250,000 mi on a Buick Regal running only ST 5w30 synthetic changed between 6-7,000 miles and it ran great when I sold it. I think it's a fine oil for say up to 7,500 miles and I would use it again.

 

[dothedrew1202]

Originally Posted By: laserred96gt
I'd rate synthetic oils like this.
1. Amsoil, Redline, Royal Purple etc.
2. Pennzoil, Castrol, Valvoline, Mobil 1 etc.
3. ST, Peak, Havoline, Mobil Super and all the store brands.


Are we talking about Amsoil Signature series? XL or OE?

 

[EA82]

Amsoil Signiture Series.

 

[njohnson]

Originally Posted By: zpinch
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Glad you showed up, since I was going to refer to your UOA and VOA posts of Meijer syn.
I'll be putting a jug of the 5W-20 flavor in the Focus on the first decent day in the next week.
I'll do a couple of runs and UOA the second just for grins.
For the cars most of us drive and the OCIs most of us run, I doubt that there'd be any detectable difference in engine wear, engine deposits or UOA metals between any of these arbitrary tiers of synthetic oil.


Well, I guarantee you will be able to detect the difference in wear between generally what the tiers or grades of oils people have posted. Detectable, my definition would be a UOA, noticeable would be subjective and up to the end consumer... what engine it is in, the health of the engine, driving habits, conditions the engine is in.

The biggest difference, IMO, between a top grade oil, say Amsoil Sig. Series, vs a less expensive oil like TGMO (albeit still good) is anti wear additives, in particular start-up wear protection, simply because of the low temp flow properties and the additives like tri-nulcear Moly used in Amsoil.


How did you know Amsoil is using the tri-nuclear moly? I'm curious because the oil companies usually are tight-lipped about their formulations, citing "propriety" reasons, so I was wondering where you learned this.

Isn't Tri-nuclear moly a patented form of moly of Mobil? There was a discussion a little back whither or not TGMO contained it because TGMO is made by Mobil. At this point, do we even know who has access to the Tri-nuclear moly?

Not trying to be confrontational or anything, just genuinely curious where you learned this information.

 

[dlundblad]

Id trust a second tier synthetic as much as a top tiered conventional.

That being said, Id use the conventional. If I drove something that required a synthetic/ blend, it'd be a top tiered one.

Where does QS synthetic fall? Somewhere between top tiered and second tiered??

 

[Brian Barnhart]

Trying to establish tiers doesn't make much sense to me. Certainly not by brand. It would only make sense to me if it were according to testing requirements met. And even then, the “order” of the teirs would likely change somewhat with different engine applications.

 

[A_Harman]

But even the oil makers have tiers, so it's not arbitrary for us to put oils in tiers.
Mobil has Mobil 1 EP, then Mobil 1, then Super Synthetic, then Super 5000, then Special.
AMSoil has Signature Series, XL, and OE.
Valvoline has Synpower, Durablend, and Premium Conventional.