What are peole putting in their cars: standard or synthetic oil? I intend to use only synthetic for all changes and picked up 4L containers of both Castrol Syntec and Valvoline Synpower(?) - both of these oils claim to be fully synthetic. I thought if I extended change intervals beyond my usual 3000 miles, that the added cost would balance out. I was really pissed off when I got home that night and read about synthetics on the web. The Castrol and likely the Valvoline are essentially cleaned up conventional oils, and contain none of the PAO (polyalphaolefin) ingredient that comprises real synthetic. They essentially redefined what the word synthetic means (they did this in 1998 or 1999) when they took the PAO out of their formula due to expense (Castrol that is). To see if the allegations were false, I went to company web sites of both companies but could only get noninformative marketing crap.

I took all of the 'sale-priced' stuff back and paid $5 more for Mobil 1 jugs. There are 3-4 other uncommon brads (Redline, Amsoil etc). that are essentially pure APO. Mobil 1 contains APO along with two other ingredients they substituted for pure APO a few years ago. Better than nothing.

Buyer Beware also applies to oil...interesting learning experience. Edmunds web aite discussion on synthetic has more on this topic. You don't know who to believe.

 

Thanks for the tip. I love to see "marketing efforts" of various companies exposed. I'm a muckracker at heart!

For now, at least for my first oil change at 5,000 miles, I'm using dino oil.

Is there some objective, factual Web site that weighs the pros and cons of dino vs synthetic motor oil?

 

check the Edmunds site. There have been articles written, some dated, on the topic, but what is really needed is a scientific test not conducted by the oil industry, including makers of synthetics (Edmunds would be great, as would Consumer Reports).