Synthetic Oil Question

[simplyzr1]

Hi Bob,

I wanted to know just what the make up, or chemistry, of synthetic oil is that makes it better than regular oil. I hear so many people say that the regular oil today is so much better than the oil of years ago, but not as good as synthetic. Synthetic is more money than regular and I'm sure we're paying for the technology behind it. What are the actual elements or processes that make it so much better?

Do you see us not using regular oil at all in the future, but just synthetic?:)

[Robert Pache]

Conventional oils use distilled fractions of crude oil which contains thousands of molecular hydrocarbon structures, not all of desirable quality. Synthetic oils are composed of of man made lubricant structures which start with basic chemical structures such as ethylene, acids and alcohol. For example , Mobil 1 base oil is composed of esters alkylated napthalene and hydrocarbons which are formulated to have specific properties such as good oxidation resistance and wear protection. In essence. sytnhetics consist of only a few molecular species specifically formulated for performance. The starting chemical components generally come from petroleum by product refining streams but can be obtained from vegitative or coal sources. Also, since the synthetic base oils are more expesive than conventional, the additive systems used are generally superior to the conventional oils because they do not adversly affect product cost since the base oil is often more expensive than the additives. Finally, synthtics do not contain paraffins which adversly affect low temperature flow. Removing all parrafins from petroleum base would be cost prohibative.

Bob

[simplyzr1]

This is really an education for me, and I believe for others also. Thank you! You really got me interested now, so I'm going to look up all those terms so I understand it better. Thanks Bob.:nod: :nod: