Thanks to all the info I have gotten' from this forum, I'm sticking with the 5W-20 in my '05 F150 (4.2 v6).
I know the Havoline 5W-20 meets Ford's 930A spec, but I have never read that it is a blend. Is it? It does not say so on the bottle, nor anywhere on the Havoline website.
My suspicion is it is a blend, but Havoline choose NOT to market it as such.
Why? Cost.
I figure they want to keep the price very competitive (which it is). They keep the 'regular" 5W-20 lower priced so they can reserve the next price tier for their (as labeled) "Synthetic Blend".
I do not know, only suspect, that the Synthetic Blend might just be regular 5W-20 with maybe only a slight change in formula, so they can then market a Synthetic Blend 5W-20, when (if I'm guessing correct) the regular 5W-20 is already a synthetic blend.

Am I making any sense??

Blend or not, I guess it has to be a good oil to meet the Ford specs.

 

as flash has said if the oil meets the 930a spec it is a blend. chevron has now gone to using the expensive iso syn base oil in there 5w20 which is the same as the havoline oil so i would say that it is a blend.

 

Brian, my guess is that hydroisomerized base stock can be produced straight run to meet spec. Without any need for blending. If they did blend, it would probably be with a Group III hydroisomerized base stock. Chevron has never been one to toot their horn about the synthetic quality of it's Iso-Syn lubricants. They just raised the bar for everybody else.

 

Scott, You are right about Chevron not tooting their own horn.
Heck, I don't think anybody at Chevron even OWNS a horn.
Were it not for communication amongst peers (like here at FTE) the good news about the Chevron products' quality would not be very widely known.
Compared to the heavily advertised products they are dark horses.
BUT, they build darned good oils!

You might just be right about the Havoline.
You know me and synthetics.....
If there happened to be just one 5W-20 oil out there that met spec without being a blend, I'd settle on that one oil, all the while being blissfully ignorant.

I'll be around 18,000 miles at my next drain. I'm doing about 4,500 mile intervals. I think I'll get a UOA done and if it looks good, settle on 4-5K mile drain intervals for the 4.2 with Havoline 5W-20 and never look back.