Oils

[BAd124]

Hello,
As an enthusiast that is always looking for ways to better the performance and care of his car I have been doing some research about the differnce of oils. It has come to my attention that Castrol Syntec is considered by many not to be a true synthetic because it uses class 3 bases(by-product waxes) instead of the higher class(olefins) 4. Red-Line Oil uses esters(class5) which are better than even olefins aliet more expensive to make. But as allowed by the all knowing oil gods (NARC) Castrol has been allowed to continue marketing it as a true synthetic!!

My question is if anyone else knows about this ? Also that since it costs less to make class 3 oil but can still call it synthetic,,others are going to do the same thing and this is most dicouraging . Please let others know about this outrage and that we have to stop this befor we are all buying petrol oil with a drop of sythetic in it and being sold as "full sythetic". Please post any info that anyone finds about the subject,,thank you

Brett

[jsmith]

well check out swepco (do a search). not synthetic but they claim it's better. i myself am leery of synthetics because in my experience they cause leaks. others may claim that they had no such problem but my own experience caused 8 trips to the dealer for my 99 passat, whose valve cover gaskets started leaking the moment i switched to synthetic. and the problem was never resolved. anyway, no synthetics for my new baby...

[ncarter]

Ah, oil. Quite possibly the most hotly debated topic on this forum.

There's a ton of information (and argument) regarding Castrol Syntec in the forums on the Volkswagen TDI club webpage:
TDIclub.com

Apparently, Castrol Syntec was originally a "true" synthetic, but they later discreetly changed the formula without changing the packaging or the marketing.

Volkswagen dealerships use Syntec in their maintenance of the TDI engine, and it's what I bought from them when I started doing my own oil changes in our Beetle TDI. I plan to change to a different compression-rated synthetic (such as Mobil Delvac 1) at my next oil change on the Beetle, and plan to start using a NON-CASTROL compression-rated oil, such as Shell Rotella or Mobil Delvac, in my 240D whenI get the engine reassembled.

Keep in mind, of course, that Castrol Syntec is a fine and good motor oil. It has properties comparable to other synthetics on the market, and it will lubricate your engine just fine. However, I personally disagree with Castrol's marketing scheme, calling Syntec a "FULL SYNTHETIC" right on the bottle, when it indeed is not; therefore, I will NOT continue to use their product.

- Nathan
'83 240D "Steiner"
'00 New Beetle TDI

P.S. I predict that by this time tomorrow, this thread will have 3 pages of replies

Mobil 1 comes as standard factory fill in a great deal of factory high performance engines. This implies the engineers regard it as being acceptable for these high compression, high temperature, high load stress engines. That is good enough for me (and my LT4 vette, S430, 380SL and ford ranger).