I was on the Motorcraft oil website, and they claim that their conventional oil is hydrocracked which from my understanding makes a conventional oil the purest it can be.

Does anyone know if Castrol GTX, Valvoline, or any of the other conventional oil brands out there are hydrocracked?

 

Conoco
Exxon/Mobil
PZ
QS

All use hydrocracking.

BTW - MC oil is made by Conoco.

 

Sounds like a marketing scheme to me. Isn't hydrocracking simply breaking long hydrocarbon chains into shorter chains? In doing this you can make more of the item you are trying to refine. IE converting heptane to octane. I believe that many products use cracking technology to produce more of the desired product.

http://www.mbendi.co.za/avec/focus/r...data/rd_11.htm

In other words, you take a barrel of crude and it produces so much of product A and so much of product B. But if you take product B and crack it, you can end up with more of product A. Make sense?

Not saying that hydrocracking won't produce a better motor oil. Just trying to remove some of the marketing mystique a technical word can have.

 

Chevron invented some of these processes under the tradename "Isodewaxing".

The older solvent refining (Group I) just removed the longer chain hydrocarbon waxes, that cause poor flow at low temperatures. Hydrocracking breaks down these waxes into lower molecular wieght hydrocarbons, true.

The next step uses hydrogen at higher temperatures and pressures to "saturate" that is, make more stable and oxidation resistant, molecules by "filling up" all available carbon atoms with single-bonded hydrogen atoms. At the same time, undesireable sulfur and nitrogen-containing molecules are broken down and replaced with more of the desirable straight chain hydrocarbons. This results in Group II, II+ and even "synthetic" group III base oils, depending on processing time and conditions.

In answer to the original question, Castrol and Valvoline still use primarily solvent refined (Group I) base oils. To meed API SM, they have to have at least some hydroprocessed base oil blended in.

ConocoPhillips brands that are actually a blend containing Group III are
Conoco
TropArctic
"76"
Motorcraft

Chevron brands that are made from Group II+ are
Chevron Supreme and Delo
Havoline

Also mentioned above are the Shell brands that are made from Group II+
Pennzoil
Quaker State

Im not sure of the base oil content of the new Mobil Clean line.

Jim

 

Jshira,

Do you think it is better to use a hydrocracked dino over one that isn't.
As you know, I use Castrol GTX, I haven't heard much that it is a bad oil.
You mentioned Mobil clean 5000 is hydrocracked?
What are your thoughts? YOu prefere a dino that is vs one that isn't?
Or does it really make a differenct in my 3-3500 mile OCI?

 

Sorry Jimandmandy...

I think you were posting at the same time I was.
So, how does a hydrocracked dino oil outperforme one that is not?
Are there any benefits gained from using one over one that isn't within a 3-3500 mile OIC?

 

You know my rules, I buy based on:

1. price;
2. API rating;
3. weight

In that order.

If it says SL or SM on the bottle, it has more than enough of "The Right Stuff" to get you well past your 3000-3500 OCI. The basic fact is that any SL/SM oil is pretty darn good stuff. Way better than any dino oil available even 10-15 years ago (the 1996 CR Oil test was run on SH-rated GP I oils, and all oils gave good results). Buy what is on sale.

That being said, if the price is the same, I'd buy the hydrocracked oil (GP II) instead of the solvent refined (GP I) oil. The GP II is a better base oil, and it is a more expensive base oil, so if a GP II is the same price as a GP I, you are getting a better deal on a better product.

But . . . There is no particular reason to change your oil brand. If you have had good luck with Castrol and are comfortable using it, no need to change.

Remember, the golden rule of marketing it to create a desire or need for a product where none exists. All the oils work fine, so the marketing types need to convince you to buy their brand instead of something else, to create a desire in you for Mobil, or Shell, or QS, etc. Don't bite.

The oil companies, additive companies engine manufacturers, quikie lube operators and hundreds of other people have spent decades defining and refining the specifications for motor oil to make sure that oils adequately protect engines. The result of these decades of work are the API ratings, currently SM. If the bottle says "SM", the price is the only other information that you need to know.

 

Jschira,

You said something I hear mentioned ALL the time..."by the cheapest SM/SL that is on sale"....

I've heard it is best to stay consistant and stay with one brand, but are you also saying that it won't hurt a thing to use a different brand at each OIC if I chose to? I was under the impression that for example: if I use Castrol one time, then switch to Pennzoil, that the residual Castrol left behind that will not drain out completely can mess with the add pack of the Pennzoil???

 

I have edited my post since you posted this response.

I supposed that, theoretically, there might be some negative interaction. But I have never heard of anyone burning up an engine because of an oil switch, have you?

In fact, if I am down a quart (which never happens in modern engines with normal OCI's), I will throw in a bottle of whatever I have on the shelf.

I believe that the "stick with one brand" argument is more an attempt to keep you from switching then a real concern.

To quote CR:

 

Yeah, that makes sense to me too.

Anyway, get a load of this! I called the Mobil tech, and asked if their conventional was hydrocracked, and said it is not, and he also said that hydrocracked oil can break down faster.

What line of BS is this he was giving me?

 

Nothing is any good, if you don't have it.

If you are looking for hydrocracked, I am told that the Conoco and Havoline oils offer the best value.

As I loaded up on $0.59/qt. Exxon/Shell and $0.79/qt QS/PZ when it was on sale last year, I have not been oil shopping lately.

 

I was thinking of "possibly" trying the Havoilne HM in my Lumina. That's if I can get off of my Castrol kick. I've used it for years.

Either way I can't go wrong, but I have heard you as well as many others say that Havoline is the best stuff with regard to price and performance.

I've even seen people post some UOA's who have driving the Havoline dino some ungodly distances.

 

No reason to change, unless you just want to go to something different.

I am not trying to talk anyone into or out of anything.

 

M/E doesn't use the Chevron technology in producing their Gp II and Gp III basestocks. Their latest claim to fame is their raffinate process. It is a much cheaper way to make a Gp III dino synthetic. Maybe the following link will give you some direction as to the oil basestock that you might want to look for. This is from the Chevron library and if you have the rest of your life to review all of the information there, I'm sure they would be happy to share it with you. Chevron is by far the most open to information oil company out there. The meathead from M/E most likely wasn't even in the USA. Most often they are giving you a canned answer, providing they find the right page. Otherwise, contacting a M/E rep on the phone is an act of stupidity......mostly because that's the type of information you're going to get.
http://www.chevron.com/products/prod...nswers.shtml#1

You might also want to note that the dino synthetic basestocks are listed as Severely Hydrocracked. The difference between the Gp II+ and Gp III's are the viscosity indexes. Most of the dino synthetics suffer from the same problems as the PAO "full synthetics" in that the basestock does not support the additive package and therefore relies on carrier fluids or binders to keep the two from separating/functioning. Regardless of the oil that you use, just know that it is a balancing act and a host of compromises to achieve the targeted results. NONE of the oils today are magic bullets and ever one of them has its own positives and negatives. But in contrast to motor oils of just ten years ago, they are light years ahead.

 

Great post, and excellent link, Flash!