Originally Posted By: Solarent
Originally Posted By: burla
Put down NOACK and pick up HTHS if you want to know about base oils. The extra heat in the hths weeds out the inferior bases, if you are simply trying to find oil that doesn't break down under heat and load. Now, many applications might see benefit from high hths, but the trend is to actually have low hths for gas mileage. In that case the low hths wouldn't mean inferior base oil, just a base that was made for gas mileage or some other spec. Soon the oil formulations will be pretty similar when gf-6 drops, best strategy just to find a cheap group 3 like m1 costco deal. You may find variances that you like, but will it be worth double the cost when you can get m1 for 4 bucks a qrt, not to my pocket book.
I completely disagree with everything you say here. Oils are now being deliberately formulated with LOWER HTHS and this is one of the major drivers in upgrading base oil quality in most formulations. Too much HTHS and all you are doing is wasting energy. There is wisdom in the adage - as thin as possible, as thick as necessary.
No, that isn't the only thing that you are doing when you increase hths, lol. You argument is energy, IE fuel economy, not protecting metal to metal wear. If you actually think lower hths base oils protect metal better, I can't reasonable have a conversation with you because that isn't true. We aren't talking about hths in a different grade oil, but the same grade. It likely isn't going to matter as we all know ad naseum you can run 7'11 oil for 200k miles, but at least know high hths is good for metal to metal constant/