What Is And Is Not PAO These Days

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Mustang Man

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So what synthetic oils are fully using polyalphaolefin base stocks and which ones are not?

Are Mobil 1 and Amsoil? What about the others?

I know all Group III, IV, and V base stocks are considered synthetic.

I read that Pennzoil Ultra is Group III.
 
A lot of the higher-end stuff apparently uses PAO to some extent. Almost everything is some kind of blend of group III/IV/V nowadays, though. The companies are rarely willing to tell us straight up, and no one here really has the means to figure it out for themselves.

Why would you want a fully PAO oil?
 
Originally Posted By: Mustang Man
It was more of a curiosity question. Probably something fully PAO would be crazy expensive.


John Deere 0w40 is all PAO, $6/quart. I don't think you get into higher-cost until you include large amounts of Group V.
 
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Originally Posted By: HangerHarley
Originally Posted By: sangyup81
If anything were fully PAO, there would be issues with additives


.. May i ask Why?


Group IV oils do not hold additives in suspension as well as Group III or Group V. This is why oils that use Group V like Red Line or Motul are considered superior to oils that focus more on PAO. This is also one reason why Pennzoil does so well even though it is a supposedly inferior Group III
 
This reminds me of a long time ago when synthetics were really synthetics and oil companies were slightly less prone to deception, synth/ bottles used to say


"100% Synthetic*"

"* - Exclusive of carrier oil"


These days, given the industry wide move to hydrocracked petroleum, you won't find such assertions anywhere because the formula is almost guaranteed to have highly processed mineral oils as part of the blend, regardless of additive carrier oil.
 
Among commonly available shelf oils, there is a pretty broad opinion that the M1 0Ws are probably not primarily group III, with the same being true of M1 15W-50.
This is merely a pretty widely held assumption, based upon deductive reasoning.
Nobody who actually knows is speaking for publication here.
XOM is not going to tell us, of course.
 
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
Royal Purple is a PAO base oil.


Right and they use Grp II I think it is as the carrier for the add pack.
 
Amtecol Suplerlife 9000m oils are 100% PAO base oil. However, there is some concern on this site that the additive package is somewhat weak. Honestly, to me, it looked similar to most of the Castrol, Pennzoil, Quaker State oils, etc. Zinc and phosphorous was greater than 600 ppm which is within the API SM guidelines. As I recall, the TBN was pretty low; however, this is the only oil that I know of that shows the percentage of its PAO or group IV and/or group V content in the MSDS. However, I could be wrong. I cannot be sure that the oils always cited, e.g., Amsoil, Royal Purple, Red Line are 100% Gp. IV/V oils without that being depicted in the MSDS. Lots of people seem to believe this to be the case though.

I suspect that almost all of today's "synthetic" oils are group III.
 
Originally Posted By: Mustang Man
Anyone know about the different flavors of Mobil 1? EP, AFE, etc.?


Ive read that 5W-40 (TDT and Delvac 1), 0W-40 Euro and 0w30 all have a high amount of PAO. Maybe even to the point of having 0 GIII in some formulations. Also that the 0W-20 is higher in PAO than 5W-20. No direct knowledge.
 
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