Synthetic Motor Oil

[Hopkirk]

What do they make it from?

[EDDIE51]

Synthetic motor oil is made from crude oil just as conventional oil is.The difference is that synthetic oil is more highly refined and has added ingredients. Synthetic oil is a misleading term as the base of it is just the same as conventional oil.
http://www.carsdirect.com/car-repair/what-is-the-difference-between-synthetic-oil-and-conventional-oil

[woofgang]

it smells lovely!

[DTCwordfan]

Actually there are two main ways, Eddie..... One way is high cracking of the residual fuel from the first distillation pass of the crude....this is then reassembled into polyalphaolefins and these make up the core base oil of the lubricant (to which the additives and what I term salt and peppers are added - friction modifiers etc and of course the polymer to allow it to perform at high and low temp.

Shell (and others) way is different - they literally hydrocrack the residue down and then reassemble them into long linear molecule chains with extra high viscosity indexes (XHVI baseoils) that make up the core - and then the additives etc.....the benefit to work at ultra-thin levels..... the first method (Mobil) has benefits at very low temperatures but for most of the world, this is irrelevant and, over time, even Exxon-Mobil have given away to the second way, the challenge there in lowering manifacturing costs (the reason that Shell Oil USA bought out Pennzoil Quaker-State as well as putting them in the driving seat as to market share.

[EDDIE51]

Yes DTC you are right.
This from Mobil is a bit biased but it explains the process better than my first link.
https://mobiloil.com/en/article/car-maintenance/learn-about-motor-oil-facts/synthetic-oil-vs-conventional-oil

[Hopkirk]

Thanks to you both.

So as I suspected, synthetic oil is made from oil.

[tonyav]

Yep, still comes out of the ground.

[DTCwordfan]

blasted into an ethereal vapour and then reconstituted, hence synthetic...and was there a hell of an argument over that term, as I found out when served papers in HK - and the Group chose to defend it around us....especially as I raped Mobil's sales with some (unheard of at that time) retail consumer advertising plus the distribution chain and sales channels initiatives to drive the nail home.

[EDDIE51]

Yes, the only thing you can make oil from is 'er' Oil !
They call it 'synthetic' to justify the high price, any thing up to £80 a gallon (5 liter) can.

[Hypognosis]

I think the hinges, on the felt-lined presentation case, for the storage of the word "olefins" have not been flexed for 30 years and are in need of a little lubrication, themselves.

If I don't count my use of it, that's two people I've heard use it in ~30 years. What does the OED do to under-used words, I wonder?

[Buenchico]

>>> So as I suspected, synthetic oil is made from oil

To be more pedantic, it's simply made from fossil fuels (rather than strictly from 'oil'). For example, Shell Helix Ultra oils are actually made entirely from natural gas.

[EDDIE51]

^^ Wow oil from farts !

[annieigma]

Hope i am not being stupid here, but if synthetic is made from oil, why is it supposed to be much better than oil? And why has oil been advertised to be getting better over the years, Castrol GTX etc? it's oil, it comes out of the ground, so whats the problem?