I'm on my 13" MacBook and still can't seem to see it. Forest for the trees moment?
LSJR blends up a custom oil in the lab
- Thread starter Glenda W.
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My bad. I thought you were referring to the latest linked video, Got it, coach!
SammyChevelleTypeS3
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Great point. I am not sure I have ever seen that exactly discussed anywhere about those oil makers. Besides the usual "they don't waste their money on meaningless certifications they know they exceed." As you mention.. "claim superiority." I suppose , forced to think about it now, I have gone on trust and words from known mechanics/part time racers, co workers , friends who steered me to some of those oils. Amsoil being the longest one I have used. Current user of Amsoil and HPL.
I have full faith in the Amsoil/RL/HPL's. Beyond that not so much.
That's how it's done in all of medicine.
Trust is a nice thing. Unexpected surprises are also a nice thing, if they are positive. If negative, not so nice.
One essential for obtaining a patent is that your discovery was unexpected. In formulating lubricants surprises happen a lot, which is why so many patents have been issued. So long as the surprise is good a patent may be ensue, and if not one learns from the mistake and the formulation is altered or scrapped, hopefully before release. But not always.
I know of three jet engine oils formulated by expert scientists at major oil companies that passed all of the bench tests, but encountered serious technical problems in the field and had to be withdrawn. You would not have heard about it if you were not an industry insider. And a piston aircraft oil from a major oil company that failed after introduction and ruined many engines. Likewise a motor oil from a major that failed in the field and seized thousands of engines, and another oil from a boutique blender that failed in the field, harming many engines. (Don't ask) By all accounts one could trust these qualified formulators, but stuff happens.
As Ronald Raegan said, “Trust, but verify”. Personally I use only certified oils because I want to know that the finished formulation was actually run in carefully controlled standardized severe engine tests and passed all of the specification requirements. That doesn’t guarantee success, but sure improves the probability.
That’s not to say that a good formulator cannot improve an oil’s performance by altering an approved formulation - they certainly can. But once altered it could be subject to surprises that might have been caught with actual standardized engine and field testing, which is why changing formulations outside of permitted read across guidelines voids approvals. With a good formulator the risk may be low, and that’s fine so long as you are willing to take it. But you should reap a meaningful benefit for the risk, and there should be a good basis for your trust. UOAs, VOAs, bench tests, manufacturer's claims, and internet rhetoric IMHO don’t qualify. I prefer standardized engine tests and field data verified by industry or engine builder's approvals. That's just me, YMMV.
I'm not so sure. I think this video is helpful in understanding the process of blending. It's like baking a cake. Gordon Ramsey will make a far better cake than I would with the exact same ingredients and kitchen equipment.
Who else is there?I have full faith in the Amsoil/RL/HPL's. Beyond that not so much.
Great video. As he said it's art and science. That's why testing is so important. He also mentioned that some will exceed the spec and that's why you see claims - 79% better wear protection, or 20x better on IIIH etc.
This was from the early 2000's when I had first joined. It was from a guy at the time who worked for XOM. I believe he used to be on Noria if anyone remembers that site.
To this day it's been one of the best explanations I've heard:
"If an oil doesn't meet its specs, this means that blending quality is horrible." Or maybe not, there are many more places along the path for things to go astray than the blend kettle.
Compounder-blenders are likely to have a very generic formulation that is 2-3 generations behind the majors, their exhorbitant claims notwithstanding. I've seen tearaparts of some pretty high-profile compounder-blender synthetics that were just sad. These guys are buying an adpak from Lubrizol or Infineum and blending it with basestock, usually from ExxonMobil, since that's the company with the most spare basestock capacity. Many of their "specs" beyond the physical properties are read across from the adpak & the basestock specs. In other words, they've never run many of the tests they quote on their actual completed blends, or even on a lab blend. I've seen plenty of oils represented as "GF-4" whose names are suspiciously absent from the ILSAC web page. Blend quality in this market segment is likely to be all over the map.
The majors are typically going to give you a state-of-the-art formulation. Even if LZ or INF produces their adpak, it's likely to be a custom job developed in concert between the two companies and frequently sold exclusively to the major in question. (Once they develop the next generation, you'll frequently find these now-out-of-fashion adpaks in the compounder-blenders' products.) Their problems may be in the blend kettle, but the gremlins are much more likely to creep into their heavily distributor-dependent supply chains."
That's just based on tearaparts I've seen, from a group of some very talented chemists playing with some very fancy toys. "Synthetic" can be about as useful a term with oil as "organic" is with food. Plastic-related materials (as in high levels of VI improver, PIB & diester) are synthetic, but there are better things to put in your lubricants these days. (But those better components, specifically high-vis PAOs and non-ester cosolvents, cut into the bottom line, you know.)
Any supplier touting one specific additive might very well be using that as sleight of hand to distract you from thinking about the rest of a fairly pedestrian formulation.
The same goes for touting one property. "We have 8 ZILLION times better wear protection than Brand X (and those deposits all over the place, uh, they give you extra rust protection, yeah, that's the ticket.)"
Think of a lube formulation as a partly filled balloon. If you squeeze it one place, it's going to bulge out somewhere else. You can also think of an additive like a drug, it's got beneficial properties and side effects. If you push too hard on one property, it's going to hurt you somewhere else. Better suppliers will try to give you a comprehensive formulation that gives the best possible overall performance the current technology can provide."
To this day it's been one of the best explanations I've heard:
"If an oil doesn't meet its specs, this means that blending quality is horrible." Or maybe not, there are many more places along the path for things to go astray than the blend kettle.
Compounder-blenders are likely to have a very generic formulation that is 2-3 generations behind the majors, their exhorbitant claims notwithstanding. I've seen tearaparts of some pretty high-profile compounder-blender synthetics that were just sad. These guys are buying an adpak from Lubrizol or Infineum and blending it with basestock, usually from ExxonMobil, since that's the company with the most spare basestock capacity. Many of their "specs" beyond the physical properties are read across from the adpak & the basestock specs. In other words, they've never run many of the tests they quote on their actual completed blends, or even on a lab blend. I've seen plenty of oils represented as "GF-4" whose names are suspiciously absent from the ILSAC web page. Blend quality in this market segment is likely to be all over the map.
The majors are typically going to give you a state-of-the-art formulation. Even if LZ or INF produces their adpak, it's likely to be a custom job developed in concert between the two companies and frequently sold exclusively to the major in question. (Once they develop the next generation, you'll frequently find these now-out-of-fashion adpaks in the compounder-blenders' products.) Their problems may be in the blend kettle, but the gremlins are much more likely to creep into their heavily distributor-dependent supply chains."
That's just based on tearaparts I've seen, from a group of some very talented chemists playing with some very fancy toys. "Synthetic" can be about as useful a term with oil as "organic" is with food. Plastic-related materials (as in high levels of VI improver, PIB & diester) are synthetic, but there are better things to put in your lubricants these days. (But those better components, specifically high-vis PAOs and non-ester cosolvents, cut into the bottom line, you know.)
Any supplier touting one specific additive might very well be using that as sleight of hand to distract you from thinking about the rest of a fairly pedestrian formulation.
The same goes for touting one property. "We have 8 ZILLION times better wear protection than Brand X (and those deposits all over the place, uh, they give you extra rust protection, yeah, that's the ticket.)"
Think of a lube formulation as a partly filled balloon. If you squeeze it one place, it's going to bulge out somewhere else. You can also think of an additive like a drug, it's got beneficial properties and side effects. If you push too hard on one property, it's going to hurt you somewhere else. Better suppliers will try to give you a comprehensive formulation that gives the best possible overall performance the current technology can provide."
Blenders actually move faster than the majors.
Most majors try to uniform blends nation wide. There is significant amounts of logistics that go into this. Moving base oils, getting additives, blend times, tankage, getting your distributors ready, etc. etc.
ILMA blenders will move on a dime. Because they’re not worried about nation wide uniformity. An additive company or base oil company cuts a deal? They’ll move the product. New blend comes out that’s less expensive? They’ll move the product.
If anything, a major’s blend will be significantly behind ILMA’s. Majors also have inventory to work through. ILMA’s do not.
This is done all the time. What fully formulated motor oil has a significant problem with wear? And even if it was "less" or "more" wear than another, does that mean my engine will wear out at 585,000 miles instead of 565,000 miles? Wear due to the oil itself does not seem to be a defining issue with any motor oil. There are other inputs to wear in an engine besides the oil.
Marketers like to pick on something that people rally around because it sounds like it's essential, (ooh! 34% less wear!) when in reality that may be one of the least significant aspects of that oil for most people - or any oil for that matter.
Years ago many were saying Mobil 1 showed higher FE, which may or may not be true. However, they were missing something. The oils showing lower wear were just average oils and they had inferior deposit control to Mobil 1 at the time. When Honda tested all the off-shelf oils, only Mobil 1 met their Turbo test. It was one of those instances that if you were to go by a UOA, you'd think the lower wear oils were doing better, but if you were to tear down those engines you might find a lot of deposits.
I think he may have been referring to the technology being used. I don't know if that's the case now, but in the past I have noticed that boutique brands were a bit behind. Even with LSPI, it was first done by Mobil.
Driven tried to take credit saying they were ahead of the game and they weren't at all. In 2012 Mobil switched to an Mg/Ca based detergent and even mentioned on their website they were years ahead on this. Largely due to the fact they work closely with OEMs and own 1/2 of Infineum.
Amsoil used to be more of a follower as well. They started using moly and boron after Mobil 1 did in early 2000's. Now I think they're likely a head of the game.
"All of the brands, whether big or small, rely on the additive companies to do the majority of the testing and formula development. Driven has been the sole exception to that because of our heritage with Joe Gibbs racing, where we worked with Lubrizol and Afton to develop custom formulas from components rather than market ready packages.
The only differentiator is that the very large companies, like Mobil or Castrol, can afford to work with the additive companies to create custom tweaks to the market ready packages specifically for them. Their volumes enable that level of development."
One of the reasons ranking oils by just UOA wear metals is ridiculous IMO.
Ha was able to find the old chart Honda R&D released back in 06.
You'd likely never know those oils that failed actually failed if you were to just run a simple UOA. It goes back to testing. The HTO-06 test tested used oil where as TEOST was new so there was some things Honda was finding in the field that TEOST was not catching, hence the new spec.
It's actually a great example to use to demonstrate the importance of testing.
You'd likely never know those oils that failed actually failed if you were to just run a simple UOA. It goes back to testing. The HTO-06 test tested used oil where as TEOST was new so there was some things Honda was finding in the field that TEOST was not catching, hence the new spec.
It's actually a great example to use to demonstrate the importance of testing.
No doubt. Single-digit parts per million on a spectrographic analysis. Essentially counting atoms.
This is key.
Not All Oils Are Created Equal
Not all synthetic oils meet Acura's HTO-06 standard. In fact, using the wrong oll in a high-performance turbocharged engine leads to accumulated deposits in the engine, which reduces performance and causes engine wear. In exhaustive testing conducted by Acura engineers, Mobil 1 produced no critical deposits on critical engine components such as the seal ring, shaft, and the turbo walls.
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