Doug Hillary

Hi,
I also noticed the comments about M1 but in the interests of harmony decided not to comment then except saying that there are ".. still a lot of misconceptions about synthetic engine and gear lubricants generally and M1 in particular.."

Wally P - your comments add maturity, balance and accuracy. M1 in its various forms is the worlds top selling synthetic oil

Jim Bailey - excellent comments Jim, and I know that the "first fill influence" is indeed one of International Marketing and "Financial" considerations. And that the choice to use a type of oil is an individuals one. Your comments about the oil specs are of course accurate and any modern "conforming"oil will do a good job. The modern low viscosity oils as you know should be avoided

However, no Manufacturer will use or endorse a product unless the liabilities are well known and accepted by all concerned. Technical considerations are also factored in and sometimes lubricants are especially developed to assist the design, development and manufacturing processes
Some gearboxes etc. may only be warranted when using a specially developed exclusive lubricant

Group 3 lubricants can indeed be "called" synthetics - a result of the Mobil - Castrol legal challenge
Group 4 lubricants are considered to be "actual" synthetic lubricants

Mobil 1 is made in a variety of International and National blends/formats with some products being International and some only National. Here in Australia we have M1 as a 5w-50, in the USA it is a 15w-50. In Europe it is both! We cannot buy a lower viscosity range of M1 here than 10w-30. The M1 0w-40 available here and Porsche's factory fill seems to be a truly International formula product - an excellent testament to the Chemists! And a good product

It is important to always READ THE SPECS ON THE CONTAINER when buying M1!!!

Mobil's Delvac 1 5w-40 was also once sold as Delvac 1 SHC 5w-40 ( Euro spec.). This is a heavy duty diesel and petrol Group 4 synthetic engine oil

As to using synthetics, experience is the key. In heavy gearboxes and differentials for instance the life to first rebuild is substantially longer - perhaps by a factor of 2 or 3 times. In heavily loaded differentials, the oil temperature can be reduced by 20c or so. This confirms the lessor stress on the components. Seals always last much longer in both cases and drain intervals can be substantially increased ( by 2 to 4 times, or even to whole of first life )

Synthetic ATFs' too are usually substantially better performers than a normal semi-synthetic ATF - especially at low and high temperatures

In engines - well, most new vehicle buyers sell their cars before the first rebuild anyway. And as an engine maker's Senior Engineer said to me recently "...you only need to really consider using an expensive synthetic oil if you want a very long engine life and plan to keep the engine for a long time..." And, "...things will break during its life anyway..."

This is true but must be also tempered by the "whole of life" costs of servicing including the filters, oil, labour and "downtime" costs. The maker however may only consider these in a cursory way! There can be a fuel economy advantage too

Extremes of use and climate are good reasons to use synthetic lubricants in cars - and for an extra margin of "care" for expensive equipment

Within the next decade most vehicles will be factory filled with "synthetic" lubricants. Many already are. Various monitoring devices will tell us when to change the oil and filter - with a large margin for error - IF THEY NEED CHANGING AT ALL!
Heavy Trucks are rapidly reaching this point already and 100000 oil drains are common

The reasons? - well consider our mutual effort in Iraq - and our diminishing natural resources!

Regards

User 4221

Speaking of "Recommended" oils.... When my 928 was built in May-1981, Porsche was recommending Shell oil. I know Shell's name has changed, but I think it bolsters Jim B.'s thought that auto manufacturers will recommend what is donated.

Scott

WallyP

I keep wondering when the "green movement" will realize how much the bogus 3000 mile oil changes foisted by the USA oil-change industry hurts the environment...

Doug Hillary

Hi,
WallyP - yes - I wonder about that too

One of the problems you appear to have there is the need to conform to CAFE and other "green" requirements and this results in a wide range of oil viscosities. You even have a 0w-20 grade too I believe
The emission requirements here have accellerated as well now that lower sulphur content and LR fuels are readily available

Much of the unnecessary oil changing and wastage is caused through a lack of knowledge, factual information, technical training and the profit motive too. It is the same here as well

Regards

Mitch Johnson

I prefer personal experience and the experience of those whom I know and trust when choosing most any product I purchase. Motor oil is no exception. In general the harder a product is marketed the more skeptical I become. Products with the highest quality should sell themselves. I am not a fan of advertising, so maybe my view is a bit slanted.

In order to analyze and determine whether M1 or any other oil is "fully synthetic" considerable knowledge about the oil you are testing would be required. The individual compounds within the oil have no markers or name tags that identify their ancestry. IMHO you would have to know exactly what you were looking for to prove conclusively that one is fully synthetic or manipulated dino. I would bet that when M1 determined Castrol was manipulated dino they had information from someone at (or formally at) Castrol.

I work as a chemist in the Environmental field and do not wish to debate the merits of (or lack thereof) frequent oil changes. However, there are compelling reasons from an environmental perspective that support more frequent changes. Used motor oil is relatively clean fuel for BIF (boilers and industrial furnaces) mainly cement kilns. These facilities rarely purchase "virgin" materials for fuel. In many places hazardous waste is allowed to be used for fuel at these facilities, which have almost no emission standards. These facilities benefit greatly from this because they can actually collect money for burning this material. The presence of used lubricating oil in the matketplace can help to deter this practice.

I have used a fully synthetic motor oil in all of my vehicles as long as I can remember. Under normal circumstances I change at 5000 miles and have for years. I have never owned a car or truck that had any engine failure. That's over 1,000,000,000 miles now primarily on 4 vehicles. I am a believer and use my own judgment.

My $0.02

PeteS

Even if they would get it for free, I doubt that they'd use it if they didn't think it was any good. Remember that they have to warranty those engines. Would you use a few dollars worth of free oil if you thought you might have to replace twin turbo engines for free, for some very angry customers? The same goes for Mercedes, the Z06 Corvette, and the Viper. They all come with the Mobil1 as factory fill. When you go to a Porsche or Mercedes dealership for an oil change, the Mobil1 is what you'll get from there too.

Lagavulin

What are your thoughts behind this statement?

We know that the majority of wear occurs upon startup, and the lower the initial viscosity of the oil, the quicker it will be able to flow throughout the engine and 'wedge' itself between the moving parts.

Let's use an extreme example to illustrate a point.

Suppose it's zero degrees outside where both of your 928's have been sitting for days without starting. In one crankcase, there's Mobil 1 0W-30, in the other, a straight 30 weight.

Now let's start both of them up. It doesn't take much imagination to picture that the straight 30W is going to take a considerable amount of time for it 'warm up' from it's molasses/taffy state before it can flow and provide lubrication for the moving parts. During this time, the engine is dependant upon the residual oil film from the previous shut down.

On the other hand, the 0W-30 will flow nearly instantaneously, protecting the engine's moving parts with a fresh film of oil, minimizing wear.

Once both are at operating temperature, all else being equal, the protection is the same from a viscosity standpoint.

My point though, is that the lower viscosity oil provides superior lubrication upon cold engine startup, where most wear occurs, regardless of the actual ambient temperature. And as the ambient temperature drops, the more critical this becomes.

kaamacat

Ah yes, a great subject. The same has been debated in the Offshore powerboat area where RoyalPurple and Amsol are chosen above M1, but,
in a large poll M1 was still used. (probably because of the price). Either way the synthetic was chosen to handle the extraordanary loads put on those engines (ie. 4000rpm for cruise) versus something below 2000.

One other item. A comparison, and especially in colder weather. Remember the old M1 commercials........well my son and I did something similar for a school experiment. Simple yes, crude yes, but you have to just do it and see.

Get some M1 and a good similar weight conventional. Get a small mouthed funnel (very small), and pour each and time to funnel empty. Try at outside temp and work your way down by sticking in the fridge then freezer for durations, and measure the temps. Here is what we recorded. Each test was repeated 3x. (each line item below). (both oils were similar in weight, ie. the M1 was not 0w or 5w stuff)

Pour Time
10-30conv M1 Temp
------------ ----------- ----------------------------
16sec 10sec 6hours at room temp
20sec 15sec 6hrs at 40F
52sec 35sec 6hrs at 16F
50sec 35sec 12hrs at 16F


Point here, sure it was not a million dollar sophisticated test, but, at the below freezing tests when you see the stuff pour like pancake syrup (non-M1).......imagine what that does to the tight tolerance engine. (we started to try the extreme temp testing, but figured that was not safe)


Bob

Doug Hillary

Hi,

Lagavulin

the issue of "modern low viscosity oils" is very complex and probably boring to those on this Forum - so this will be as brief as possible

It is worth while noting that the ACEA "Euro" rating system was established by the European Vehicle and Engine Manufacturers, including Porsche in the early 1990's. The long established American rating system is managed by the American Petroleum Institute Whilst not mutually exclusive they are indeed culturally different !!

The "...modern low viscosity oils..." I referred to are those rated by the API as say SL 0w-20, 0w-30 etc. and have the API Energy Conserving 1, 2 etc. on the label. The ACEA may rate them as A1 and A5. These have been especially formulated and designed for engines requiring a low friction, low viscosity oil. These oils have a low HTHS viscosity rating ( 2.6-3.5 m Pas) that could damage some engines, cause high oil usage and etc.

These oils are generally not recommended for certain engines and ACEA clearly state this. They say to "refer to the Owners Manual" if considering using these oils. They are not recommended for a 928. We should use oils rated by ACEA as A3-96>/B3-96> if possible and at temp/viscosities nominated in the Drivers Handbook

In Australia for instance, M1 10w-30 has ACEA's A1/B1 rating and it would NEVER go into my 928!

There is no oil rated as a "30w" - the only mono-grade oils with a "w" rating begin at 25w and finish at 0w. Yes a 0w-30 oil will certainly perform better at zero temp ( C or F ? ) than a 30! And a significant amount of total engine wear occurs at cold start up

A straight 30 rated oil can be used in a 928 as Jim Bailey said - but only in the 30F to 85F temperature range

A feature of most M1 oils - even the 15w-50 - is that they have a "pour point" of about -58F! So these oils even without a 0w rating are excellent at low temperature start up time

For the 928, Porsche recommended a synthetic oil in the ranges of 5w-30 or 40 or 50. Or 10w-30 or 40 or 50

Mobil may not sell M1 in these viscosities but 15w-50 is recommended as Jim Bailey points out. Any M1 used should have the A3-96>/B3-96> rating and "Porsche Approved" on the label. Porsche never recommended a 0w-30 - the factory fill in 1992 was M1 5w-40 and today it is a M1 0w-40

I'm using a superceded synthetic oil - Shell Helix Ultra 15w-50 SJ/CF A3-96/B3-96 in my S4

Regards

Lagavulin

Wow, nice answer Doug!

Prompted by your reply, I will do a more in-depth investigation.

Jfrahm

What I recall about recent developments in synthetic oils (which might just be rumor) was that Castrol was selling a Group III base stock as a 'Full Synthetic' when in fact it's base stock was a highly refined mineral oil. There was a court case, but they won and were allowed to call their oil 'synthetic.' This was a problem for true synthetic oils with a PAO base stock, as those oils cost a great deal more to produce, but had to sell on store shelves next to a Group III oil also labeled 'full synthetic.' this led to the concern that Mobil would also switch to a Group III base stock. According to the website, the new TriSyn Mobil 1 is still PAO based.

Personally I love the great temerature range of synthetic oils, and even Group III oils are very good in this regard (In fact a great Group III can beat a mediocre PAO based oil.)

I don't feel there is much to be gained from using synthetics on the street in the summertime but I often use them anyway (oil is cheap, engines are expensive.) In the winter I make sure I have full synthetic in my snow vehicle. I do feel startup wear is greatly reduced in colder temperatures with synthetics.

Also synthetic ATF is great stuff for the summer heat, and synthetic gear oil doesn't smell as bad as the suphurous dead Dino product (and I always seem to get some in my hair when changing gear oil.)

-Joel.

Z

The most recent information I've seen is from a Porsche technical bulletin titled "Engine Oils Approved by Porsche", and dated March 17th, 2000. The recommendation covers all Porsche four, six, and eight cylinder engines from 1973 on. The temperatures on the chart ranged from below -20*F up to and exceding 100*F. The synthetic oil weight and temperature ranges are listed as follows:

10W-30 from -5*F up to 100*F
5W-30 and 0W-30 from below -20*F up to 100*F
10W-50/60 and 10W-40 from -5*F up to and exceding 100*F
5W-40/50 and 0W-40 from below -20*F up to and exceding 100*F

From on the bottle of Mobil1 0W-40:

European ACEA A3/B3/B4-98 approved
API SL,SJ,EC,CF
Mercedes-Benz 229.3/229.5 approved
"Meets engine performance requirements of Audi, BMW, Porsche, Saab, Volkswagen and Volvo"

Mobil1 0W-40 is also factory fill in all Porsches, Mercedes-Benz AMG, and Aston Martin cars.

John Struthers

Well,
looky here!
Good thread , great responses.
Informative . Variety of sources.
Now if we could only do the same for air filters....

John..

Oh, in this case, everybody MUST buy a K&N filter! NOT

Randy V

Another great analogy by Mr. B!

I still use the one you posted awhile back about "Tying a pig to the ground certainly will prevent it from flying, but it does not prove that pigs can fly".