If you buy a full synthetic oil you may be getting ripped off. Not only could you spending money on something that is not really what you want but at the same time you could be putting your engine at risk.
See not all synthetic oils are created equal. As you could guess there have been some legal battles over what a synthetic oil is. The standard used to be that a PAO base oil was the only real synthetic oil because the base oil was completely synthesized at the molecular level.
Most full synthetic oils are actually highly refined conventional oils. Now this may not be a horrible thing because you can make an excellent motor oil by highly refining crude. The problem is there is not a generally accepted rating scale to evaluate the performance and protection of an oil. You and I can run down to the auto parts store and look at a table or chart that shows which oil is best.
A “full synthetic motor oil should not be a conventional oil that has a couple of synthesized additives. That is dishonest. If you are wondering whether oil companies are honest or not just take a look at some of the snake oil additives that are out there and have a peek at who is making them. Yup a lot of the big names are hiding behind those little bottles of snake oil.
A synthetic oil should be just that 100% synthetic base stock. Now we can argue over whether a group III or a group IV basestock is synthetic but at least we are dealing with the higher quality base stock in both cases. Some oils out there are calling themselves semi synthetic just because one of the small percentage additives had a synthetic base to it. Is that fair? I don’t think so.
My favorite oil that tests very high through the litany of ASTM test available for oils is a 100% synthetic oil with a group IV PAO basestock… a true synthetic in my book.
If you are looking for the definitive test data on the major synthetic oils then you can find the right oil for you by reading the best motor oil review report.
