Does it really matter??

Roger · November 11, 2001

SO it appears that Mobil-1 and Amsoil are the preferred choice of synthetic oil in this forum. While there are other synthetic oil used, it seems that most of us use one of these 2 brands.

If you are a believer of the information that Amsoil puts out, then Amsoil, by far, is the best oil. The problem that I tend to see with Amsoil, is that their testing is done at independent labs that are paid for by Amsoil. To me, that isn't too independent. If you are that lab, and you know that you are being paid by Amsoil, wouldn't you tend to make Amsoil look better in the testing?

Mobil-1, on the other hand, comes from a company that is not MLM. Mobil -1 supposely, has been changed from a superior sythetic, made from the same base that supposely Amsoil is, to a inferior base.

So what would really be nice is if some totally independent body ran tests on all these different oils and told us how they all really rank. Of course if this ever happened, the oil companies that did bad would probably come out and say that the tests were flawed.

I think the notion of extended drain intervals that Amsoil pushes is very good for this enviroment. We should be conserving our resources-synthetic and natural. But for us to go with the mileage range that Amsoil states, we would have to buy one of their bypass filter systems. That is money. Still, the oil will get dirty and doing a oil analysis every couple thousand miles is expensive ($16.00). Right there is 5 quarts of mobil-1 (on sale of course).

So with all that in mind, I will still change my synthetic oil every 3 to 5 thousand miles. And unless I can see some non bias research on Amsoil vs the rest of the synthetic line, I will probably stick with Mobil-1 (but I will admit, I am very tempted to try out Amsoil's XL line).

So we end as we started. 2 groups and probably no bending between them

Just my humble observations.

Frank S · November 11, 2001

Roger

Over the past several years I have run everything from Castrol Syntec to Mobil 1 to Amsoil,which I currently still use.

I was very happy with the Mobil 1 and still think it's a good oil.I never would have switched if not for my father.

He began using Amsoil in his '97 PSD along with the dual filtration system 3 years ago.He actually bought my first Amsoil order because i couldn't bring myself toswitch from something that worked for me.

After changing over,I immediately noticed a difference in how smooth my wife's Tahoe ran,even after using the Mobil 1 for 15k and changing at regular intervals.That's when I switched the oil in my truck to Amsoil after the initial oil change and it's been there since with somewhat regular changes.

I usually let it go 5-6k in my truck and drain and redo it just because it's my preferance but the rest of my family has been going with the extended drain intervals with no problems at all.

Oh,and in regards to the lab tests,we send ours off to a friend that works at a refinery not far from where we live and he has it tested by their lab.