Oil question. Splain it

[da prez]

Oil has gone up in price.  Why has synthetic oil gone up.
 Took the wife's car in and the price was almost $30.00 more than the last oil change .  I asked why and was told it increased with the oil. ??????

                   da prez

[Serk]

"Synthetic oil is a man-made lubricant that consists of artificially made chemical compounds. Synthetic oils are typically created from chemically modified materials such as petroleum components, but the base material is almost always distilled crude oil."

https://www.caranddriver.com/research/a32879214/synthetic-oil/

[John Schmidt]

Ross, it's kinda like the covid craze...gives them something to blame it on without actually being the source of a problem. The majority of delays in shipping or service we all experienced the last couple years were always blamed on covid. It was a very handy issue to use, same goes for the synthetic oil price gouge. I guess there is a bit of truth in it since the majority base material in syn oil is still a petroleum product.

Looks like Serk beat me to the punch.  

[..]

I'm trying to find 10-30 without friction modifiers.

At a reasonable price 

[Chrisj CMA]

I'm trying to find 10-30 without friction modifiers.

At a reasonable price 

Our Walmart has Mobil 1 V-Twin oil in 10-40 and 20-50. It seemed reasonable in price last time I bought it. And I thought about it for a second and I’m sure it would lubricate a six cylinder as well as a two banger

[six2go #152]

I'm trying to find 10-30 without friction modifiers.

At a reasonable price 

O'Reilley's has Lucas synthetic 10w-30 in my area. The 1800 seems to like it quite well. The only problem is that it is only stocked 2qts to a store so I either have them order it or I go to different stores to get the 4 qts needed.

[Patrick]

Its all putin's fault. It has to be, its his fault for everything else.

[..]

Just ordered Mobil 1 synthetic to be delivered by WalMart 

[Rio Wil]

I have heard that Walmart Super Tech synthetic is suspiciously identical to Mobile One syn.....

[Mooskee]

My Home Depot has Rotella T6 5W 40 for $24.98 / Gal IN STOCK! I was looking everywhere for the stuff and couldn't find it in stock, then stumbled across at Home Depot of all places at a cheaper price than the Auto Parts Stores who did not have it in stock.

[cookiedough]

I am finding just the opposite having synthetic oil on sale all the time and conventional motor oil which I have always used on my autos (not cycles use rotella T6 5w-40), ONLY 1 buck or so cheaper per quart is all.    Synthetic oils use to be 2x's the price of regular conventional oil, but not anymore.  For 1 bucks, even 1.50 more per qt for synthetic, pays to start switching, although all my vehicles might get upset going to synthetic, not sure on that?  I think is a myth that say at 90K miles or so finally switching to synthetic oils is bad 1st time ever vs. regular oil all the cars lifespan?

[cookiedough]

Oil has gone up in price.  Why has synthetic oil gone up.
 Took the wife's car in and the price was almost $30.00 more than the last oil change .  I asked why and was told it increased with the oil. ??????

                   da prez

I think the auto place is marking it up as an excuse just because they can do it and profiting the markup even more so.

[cookiedough]

speaking of oil and brought up SUPERTECH oil at Walmart,  has anyone been using for their autos the Supertech OIL FILTERS?   I am having a harder time finding AC delco oil filters at my local store and the price has gone up as well on them.   I read reviews on youtube and I went into Walmart and compared to the K&N and Mobil 1 oil filters looking inside and look identical to me.  At 2.90 for 10K mile white one and 20K mile one in blue for 5.90 is hard to beat the price for sure.    Only difference, according to utube video between the 2 is a silicone vs. rubber seal in them and figure if changing oil every 5K miles at 2.90 the rubber seal is good enough for a general oil change on vehicles.

Might have to be making trips to Walmart more so to get oil as well my local Farm and Fleet has not been having my cheaper Citgo Supergard semi-synthetic oil on sale past 1 year or more.  All sales are now on FULL synthetic oil and the price difference is only like 1 to 1.50 per quart is all nowadays.   I guess more and more NEW cars are requiring FULL synthetic oils but what about older cars just running and needing regular conventional oil? 

[..]

speaking of oil and brought up SUPERTECH oil at Walmart,  has anyone been using for their autos the Supertech OIL FILTERS?   I am having a harder time finding AC delco oil filters at my local store and the price has gone up as well on them.   I read reviews on youtube and I went into Walmart and compared to the K&N and Mobil 1 oil filters looking inside and look identical to me.  At 2.90 for 10K mile white one and 20K mile one in blue for 5.90 is hard to beat the price for sure.    Only difference, according to utube video between the 2 is a silicone vs. rubber seal in them and figure if changing oil every 5K miles at 2.90 the rubber seal is good enough for a general oil change on vehicles.

Might have to be making trips to Walmart more so to get oil as well my local Farm and Fleet has not been having my cheaper Citgo Supergard semi-synthetic oil on sale past 1 year or more.  All sales are now on FULL synthetic oil and the price difference is only like 1 to 1.50 per quart is all nowadays.   I guess more and more NEW cars are requiring FULL synthetic oils but what about older cars just running and needing regular conventional oil? 

[Nightflight99]

speaking of oil and brought up SUPERTECH oil at Walmart,  has anyone been using for their autos the Supertech OIL FILTERS?   I am having a harder time finding AC delco oil filters at my local store and the price has gone up as well on them.   I read reviews on youtube and I went into Walmart and compared to the K&N and Mobil 1 oil filters looking inside and look identical to me.  At 2.90 for 10K mile white one and 20K mile one in blue for 5.90 is hard to beat the price for sure.    Only difference, according to utube video between the 2 is a silicone vs. rubber seal in them and figure if changing oil every 5K miles at 2.90 the rubber seal is good enough for a general oil change on vehicles.

Might have to be making trips to Walmart more so to get oil as well my local Farm and Fleet has not been having my cheaper Citgo Supergard semi-synthetic oil on sale past 1 year or more.  All sales are now on FULL synthetic oil and the price difference is only like 1 to 1.50 per quart is all nowadays.   I guess more and more NEW cars are requiring FULL synthetic oils but what about older cars just running and needing regular conventional oil? 

Thank you for posting the UOA, Britman. I've been running these on all of my vehicles for many years, and this particular one will come in handy for comparison on my still new-to-me Valkyrie.

I'm a bit surprised at the shearing in this particular engine. The FC6 configuration seems less likely to shear the oil in such a relatively short OCI. I've seen Mobil 1 perform quite well in many of my own UOAs (in a variety of motorcycle, car and truck engines), but I would be curious to see how a more shear-resistant oil would hold up for the same interval length. I've personally had excellent results with Amsoil's fully synthetic signature oil when I have dealt with engines that were prone to shearing down oil. That said, since the viscosity in most of your listed UOAs seems either borderline or just below the expected values, it might be cheaper to simply stick with shorter intervals.

[h13man]

I have heard that Walmart Super Tech synthetic is suspiciously identical to Mobile One syn.....

I seen that they had it in stock but the price, not a bargain for damn sure. I'll stay with Mobil 1 for now but...

[Nightflight99]

that's a 10k mile oil change oil. change filter at 5k miles top off he oil level and go another 5k miles. UOA would most likely shown good for 15k miles.

honda states 8k mile oil change with their dino oil. boxer style engines have very little wear.

The borderline viscosity values of both the current and previous UOAs suggest that going significantly longer would further shear the oil down to lower weights, which would in turn likely increase wear.

David -- out of curiosity, did you clean/replace the airfilter recently? Or just use a different oil filter? The drop in both aluminum and silicon in this UOA is significant (even with the slightly shorter OCI) compared to the previous ones.

[..]

that's a 10k mile oil change oil. change filter at 5k miles top off he oil level and go another 5k miles. UOA would most likely shown good for 15k miles.

honda states 8k mile oil change with their dino oil. boxer style engines have very little wear.

The borderline viscosity values of both the current and previous UOAs suggest that going significantly longer would further shear the oil down to lower weights, which would in turn likely increase wear.

David -- out of curiosity, did you clean/replace the airfilter recently? Or just use a different oil filter? The drop in both aluminum and silicon in this UOA is significant (even with the slightly shorter OCI) compared to the previous ones.

Not my chart. Just something I saw posted re SuperTech filters

[Nightflight99]

Not my chart. Just something I saw posted re SuperTech filters

Ah, roger that!

[F6Dave]

Actually that's the latest UOA for my F6B. I ran it because it was the first oil change since switching to a Super Tech oil filter, and I wanted to see if anything changed. I had been using Bosch but the local stores quit carrying them so I went with the Super Tech. BTW this is the cheaper ST version, rated at 10,000 miles as I remember.

As you can see the results were great, actually better than before. So I'll stay with these inexpensive filters.

You'll notice that the results improved at every oil change. When the F6B was new I was a little concerned that wear metals were higher than the GL1800 averages, but the numbers have been improving at every change and now they're better than average. These bikes must have a LONG break in! As for the question about the air filter, the bike still had the original filter when I ran this test. I recently changed that filter (a gruesome 3 hour job on a GL1800) at 47,040 miles.

FYI I recently tested my 1998 Tourer with over 176,000 miles, and the results were very similar to the GL1800. I've posted both results below.

F6B:


1998 Valkyrie:

[H*GLEG]

[They] plan on running us out of diesel oil also, total collapse of supply chain.

[F6Dave]

The borderline viscosity values of both the current and previous UOAs suggest that going significantly longer would further shear the oil down to lower weights, which would in turn likely increase wear.

Keep in mind that these viscosity numbers are for a 15W-50 oil. The 'should be' numbers for the 5W-30 I run in my car and truck are considerably lower:

SUS Viscosity @ 210°F should be: 55-63
cSt Viscosity @ 100°C should be: 8.8-11.3

[Nightflight99]

Keep in mind that these viscosity numbers are for a 15W-50 oil. The 'should be' numbers for the 5W-30 I run in my car and truck are considerably lower:

SUS Viscosity @ 210°F should be: 55-63
cSt Viscosity @ 100°C should be: 8.8-11.3

Good point! The higher initial viscosity certainly mitigates some of the issue of the oil shearing down. I'd love to see a comparison with a more shear-resistant oil.

[F6Dave]

Keep in mind that these viscosity numbers are for a 15W-50 oil. The 'should be' numbers for the 5W-30 I run in my car and truck are considerably lower:

SUS Viscosity @ 210°F should be: 55-63
cSt Viscosity @ 100°C should be: 8.8-11.3

Good point! The higher initial viscosity certainly mitigates some of the issue of the oil shearing down. I'd love to see a comparison with a more shear-resistant oil.

I suspect they all shear down near the bottom of the 'should be' range after several thousand miles. I tested my car last December with 7900 miles. It was 56.7 and 9.26, which are near the bottom of the 5W-30 ranges stated above.

[F6Dave]

I found this conversion chart on BobIsTheOilGuy.com It tells me that after only 2388 miles, the 15W-50 oil in my Valkyrie sheared down to a (Something)W-40. Undoubtedly other grades will shear at a similar rate. It makes me wonder about the 5W-20 oil so many vehicles call for.

[cookiedough]

good info for sure.  I guess I will have no hesitation spending 2.90 on the ST cheaper Supertech version, even though is ugly white color who cares is under the car anyways no one sees it.  If I was running full synthetic oil,  I would splurge get the 5.90 blue Supertech oil filter though since would change oil every 8000 miles or so vs. my 5K now on regular conventional oil.   

My Hyundai Sonata oil filters though thru amazon.com, if can find them,  only run 6.50 each if buy in a 6 pack and seeing as how 1 of my 3 Hyundai's is still under factory warranty,  I will continue to use OEM Hyundai oil filters.  I can see Hyundai giving me headaches saying this is NOT OEM oil filters if problems arise under warranty with the engine.

[F6Dave]

I can see Hyundai giving me headaches saying this is NOT OEM oil filters if problems arise under warranty with the engine.

You can always change that filter before going to the dealer for warranty work!

Actually I think there's a federal law preventing manufacturers from requiring their own brand of filter, unless they provide it for free. I just looked it up, it's the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act.