What brand of synthetic oil for 2000 Passat 1.8T ?

Mobil 1 0W-40, on sale right now at Farm & Fleet for $3.99 per quart. Went on sale right after I bought it for $4.99 per quart.

just about any name brand synthetic will do. Our dealer charges $5.45/qt for VW/Castrol. K-mart, Wal-Mart, etc Mobil 1 goes for $4 per quart. Just ask your dealer how much a new engine costs... then compare that to the price of

4 quarts of oil?

If you just got an extended warranty letter from VW, it says what oils must be used to qualify for the extension.

Anything with the VW 502.00 rating. You are most likely to find it on 5W-40 or 0W-40 oils; a few 5W-30 oils have it but most 5W-30 oils do not have it.

From my casual observations, it seems that VW gives its 502.00 rating to the true 100% synthetic oils, and not to the quasi-synthetics such as Castrol Syntec. Mobil 1 0W-40 is most widely-available 100% true synthetic oil with the 502.00 rating.

In the US, that is.

but not to all syns with this visc.

Castrol Syntec 5W-40 has the VW 502.00 rating, but Castrol Syntec 5W-30 does not have that rating.

As I understand it, Castrol Syntec 5W-40 is the only Syntec product that is

100% true synthetic. It's made in Germany, and is rarer than hen's teeth in the US.

Amsoil 5W-40 is true synthetic, and Amsoil states that it meets VW 502.00, but VW doesn't list it on its "approved" list.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I believe the 5W-50 Syntec is also 100% true synthetic, and they have or used to have a 20W-50 that I also believe was

100% synthetic

It's made in Germany, and is rarer than hen's teeth in

That may be, but AFAIK it is not VW-certified.

-- Mike Smith

There was a big controversy about this a couple years back. Castrol had been using real PAO synthetic base stocks for their Syntec oils, but then changed to VHVI base stocks, because they're cheaper. VHVI base stock is not synthetic, and contains all the waxes and other undesirable ingredients that refining petroleum cannot completely remove. Castrol continued to call their oils "synthetic" on the grounds that the additives to the base stock were synthetic. Mobil had a fit about this, because Mobil 1 uses real PAO base stock and they didn't like Castrol marketing their Syntec as synthetic when it's really not. The matter went to arbitration before some marketing authority, and Castrol won. Even though Castrol won on marketing grounds, Syntec does not use PAO base stock, and contains all the undesirable junk that comes with dino oil and which true synthetic avoids. Any American-made Syntec does not use PAO base stock, and is not truly synthetic. The German,

5W-40 does use PAO.

While we can debate the merits of dino versus synthetic oil, I think we'd all agree that if you're buying synthetic oil, it ought to be real, honest synthetic oil. So, I quit using Syntec and went over to Mobil 1 in the V-Dub, and went to Amsoil in the van. Plus, Mobil 1 0W-40 has the VW 502.00 rating, so, what the heck.

You said Mobil uses PAO. Then you said "Any American-made Syntec does not use PAO base stock, and is not truly synthetic." Is Mobil 1 not USA made?

ingredients

American-made

Syntec is a specific brand from Castrol, not a generic term. Mobil 1 is US-made, and does use PAO base stock.

-- Mike Smith