Best no BS motor oil/filter comparison?

Depends on the engine. I had a Chrysler Laser that was famous for baking out residual oil and coking up the turbocharger if not very carefully treated. Synthetic oil seemed to prevent that problem; I got 480,000 miles on the original engine and turbocharger with no special cool-down treatment. The fact that the synthetic had a much higher breakdown temperature was a big deal.

Or if you need to operate with the same oil over an extremely wide temperature range, so you need a very wide viscosity range.

--scott

Care to elaborate on the claim that Mobil 1 scold in the US is no longer a full synthetic. The follow claim comes from the Mobil 1 Web Site:

"Is Mobil 1 with SuperSyn Technology a fully synthetic motor oil?

"Yes, it is. To meet the demanding requirements of today's specifications (and our customers' expectations), Mobil 1 with SuperSyn uses high-performance fluids, including polyalphaolefins (PAOs), along with a proprietary system of additives. Each Mobil 1 with SuperSyn viscosity grade uses a unique combination of synthetic fluids and selected additives in order to tailor the viscosity grade to its specific application."

And be careful when you say "Amsoil" is a full synthetic. Some Amsoil products are, some are not (the XL oils for instance).

Ed

BTW, where did this debate you refer to take place? I'd like to go back and read the archive of it.

Royal Purple is full synthetic, but I've heard/experienced sludge problems when switching in a car that uses conventional for a long time. There are a couple of other rather unknowns out there as well and note that Amsoil XL7500 is a semi-synthetic like Syntec which from my singular experience is crap. I knew Mobil 1 had been reformulated and had heard it was not as good as it was, but did not know it was now semi-synthetic. Got any links on that?

And AFAIK only the XL7500 is not full synthetic. It used to be referred to as such until Castrol won their claim from some idiot judge. IMO hydro-cracked mineral oil is extremely pure, but it is not synthetic.

Like Fel-Pro having MLS head gaskets available for problematic Honda, Chrysler, and Toyota engines at least 2 years before any one of them admitted that there was a need for such a change from the traditional head gaskets.

The Royal Purple motor oil is very effective as a solvent, and it will indeed remove varnish and crap from your engine that it can't keep in solution. This is a good thing but you have to watch it, as you note.

Interestingly their gear oil does not seem to be as effective a solvent for old varnish than the Red Line gear oil.

I think the problem is that there are a whole bunch of Mobil 1 products available under different names and the stuff from the industrial and automotive distributors are different.

I believe that Castrol does still make one real synthetic for the US market, and I think it's the one they are marketing as 5W-40, but I am not positive on that one.

--scott

Ditto CarQuest "house brand" filters. Even the same relationship to the part number (first couple of digits indicates the reseller, the rest of the P/N is the application).

Note however that NAPA "Silver" filters are NOT made by Wix. I don't know who makes them.

Wix filters are good

In fairness to Fram, that's only true of their automotive filters. They have a line of industrial filters that are well-documented and seem to come from a different planet (or at least a different manufacturing plant on the same planet) than their consumer grade products. The thing I like about Wix is that their product line is more seamless- the consumer-grade products are documented just like the industrial products.

Of course that could all change next year. Federal-Mogul, for example, used to be a name you could trust on face value in parts. Now they sell a whole lot of made-in-China junk. You can't trust entirely in past performance anymore, unfortunately.

Filters are a very gray area and rife with opinion. Bobistheoilguy.com does a decent job of tracking oils in a more quantitative way. But you have to read the forums there and see what people are finding in their used oil analyses, its not very well summarized.

The other thing that becomes obvious is that some oils that seem to perform flawlessly in some engines don't do so well in others (ie, show larger amounts of wear metals in used oil analyses). There was a lot of speculation that this had to do with low ZDDP oils in flat-tappet engines, but now that's being somewhat called into question too. Its just a REALLY complicated task to sort out the "best" oil.

Bottom line- any API-certified oil of the proper grade, changed at regular intervals, and used with a name-brand filter also changed at regular intervals will certainly not harm your engine. And since today more than ever, engines usually outlast the plastic and electronics of the cars they're inside, it really is something of a moot point.

How about Mobil 1 Extended Performance oil? Does that meet your approval as a full synthetic?

I would not take any advice from someone about synthetic oil who thinks it is a waste of money for most people.

Most people treat their vehicles like everything else, something to be consumed and used up and thrown away, so why would syn. oil have any benefit to them? Trade in value doesn't change based on the oil they used so long as the engine isn't obviously broken.

The benefits are for those vehicle owners with special applications or don't want to wait for turbos to cool down or care about deposits/sludge or don't want to change oil every 3000 miles or a number of other reasons that someone else might laugh at.

I'm not sure using Mobil 1 is worth the price premium. Don't use it myself. One son does though. If I lived in a colder place than Chicago, I might consider it. Could be worth it just for those sub-zero starts. But I'm speculating.

--Vic

If you look closely at Mobil 1 Extended Performance synthetic oil, it is different than normal Mobil 1, and my understanding is that is more like old Mobil 1 and is fully synthetic according to your definition. So before you contineue to say that Mobil 1 is not a full synthetic, you should investigate this.

I sure do. Or close to it. I enjoy a beer while doing it. But the cost is nothing for me since I don't waste thousands of dollars buying new Toyotas.

--Vic

The condition of the drive train on my 1998 Camry V6, that has used synthetic oil since the first oil change, tells me otherwise. I never dreamed of keeping a car this long, and never did before (even other Camrys and Accords).

If I were to sell the car myself, I bet my oil change receipts (all Mobil 1) would fetch me more than the extra amount I spent to use Mobil 1. If I traded it in (not sure any dealer would even take a car that old) I would get more money because the engine is in perfect condition, and would be noted as so in a test drive, which is worth some amount of money.

I will agree, that if you are going trade a car in every 3 years, then synthetic oil may not pay off financially.

I've seen the difference just in replacing valve cover gaskets.

Sometimes I wish I lived in a mild climate instead of being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on 90-100deg F days or starting the car in the sub zero cold. I remember some of the sounds until the dino oil started flowing and I remember using a paint stripper heat gun to blow hot air into an engine through the oil filler and dipstick tube to get the oil warmed enough so the car would start. I'll it's worth the few extra bucks not to have to deal with those things anymore even if the engine doesn't last a revolution longer than it would have otherwise.

I'm in chicago and the start up difference was quite remarkable when I last switched a car from dino to syn. It's back on dino since for some reason it consumed the mobil one at a rate I don't start it in sub zero cold any more. The car I do have to start in sub-zero cold has been on mobil 1 since it's first oil change.

Keeping a car that long falls under 'other reasons that someone else might laugh at' ( I drive a '97 BTW)

I used dino oil in my Buick when I lived in Norway. There was never any sort of problem with the oil, and we certainly had sub zero temperatures.

My Passat, same venue, used whatever VW recommended since it was a company car and was always dealership serviced. It had a small oil "seep" from day one, and I am certain that it was synthetic or partial synthetic.

Basically, with oil and filters, you buy what you believe in, and you service your car the way you want. As long as you get away with what you do, you havent done anything wrong, IMO