Synthetics-my last (very long) word.

[Gross Scruggs <GScruggs@wposmtp.nps.navy.mil>]

Many of you Audi enthusiasts are already dialed-in on the petroleum vs
synthetics debate but most, from the postings, could use more information.  I'd
like to list some of my accumulations on the topic:

- Whether or not synthetics are better lubricants than those petroleum based
and, why OEMs do or do not recomment them are two related but unconnected
questions.

- Synthetic lubricants were invented by German engineers in the '30s in
anticipation of wartime shortages.  Save the petro stocks for fuel. 

- Currently in Germany, I am told, you must use synthetics for your oil changes.
 It is the law!  Extended change intervals reduce the waste oil to be disposed. 
(Source: a friend of mine stationed at Ramstein bought a new Accord (no taste)
for his wife and found that he was required to use synthetics for changes.  I
recommended Mobil 1 for his situation although I don't use the stuff.)

- There are literally thousands of synthetic lubricant types, each having
slightly different characteristics and therefore different potential
applications.  

- Automobiles have historically used petro-based lubricants not because they are
superior but because they were all that was available when the need for inernal
combustion lubricants emerged.  We continue to purchase petro lubes largely due
to habit, availability, and inertia.  

-Do you actually imagine that automobile manufacturers care in the least what
you run in your car after you sign the papers?  The manufacturer doesn't go to
sleep each night with dreams of many satisfied customers in his head.  He is
dreaming of what he can do today get you to buy his car tomorrow.  He is
interested in your post-purchase happiness only in how his reputation impacts
his future sales.  This doesn't mean they are evil people but, simply, business
is business.

- We would like to think that decisions like OEM endorsement of synthetics would
be based on logic and engineering.  Wake up and smell the sulphur ... the reason
is money!  The auto manufacturers make deals with petro suppliers for bulk
purchases of lubricants which they can get cheaper than synthetics. An economy
of scale, therefore increasing price, synthetics account for <5% of the market. 
If they switch to OEM synthetic then they have a more expensive product.  Same
thought trail for tires. 

- These petrolubes are placed in the new cars because the OEM decision maker
knows that the majority of owners are going to blow off most all preventative
maintenance and treat the car as a disposable item.  
- And come to think of it no manufacturer wants his product to last too long,
because there goes his repeat business.  There is no technical reason why a
lifetime lightbulb can not be made.  The bulb manufacturer makes his money from
making replacement bulbs.  If he were to make a lifetime bulb it would have to
cost the equivilent of a lifetime of regular bulbs for him to stay in business. 
Do automobile manufacturers not think the same way?

- OEM/auto producers also don't endorse synthetics for liability reasons.  These
are the same reasons why light aircraft manufacturers are using the same engine
designs from the early '30s.  If they make a change and someone crashes, for
whatever reason, then they will have to prove they were not liable.  (That's why
light aircraft industry stopped production for about ten years, until liability
laws were changed.)  If the OEM makes a change in the normal content of their
product and something remotely goes wrong then that entire class of unnecessary
lawyers smell money and start screaming lawsuit. (By the way, how do you tell
the difference between a porcupine and an Audi full of lawyers? The porcupine
has the pricks on the outside.  I apoligize for offending anyone, perhaps I
should have said a Mustang full of lawyers?)

- Why should one use synthetics, or not?  Peto lubes do not wear out.  They
can't.  It's physically impossible to wear out oil.  So what changes such that
you periodically need to get rid of the old stuff?

- Were our machinery to run at constant and moderate load and  temperature petro
lubes would work wonderfully.  But they don't and they don't.  The normal
environment to which we subject our machinery, -30dF to 400dF, is past the
limits where petro lubes work without chemical assistance.  

- To petro oils you must add pour point depressants to overcome the
molasses-like tendancy in a Montana blizzard.  You must also add viscosity
improvers to allow the oil to deal with the Suburban pulling an Airstream across
death valley in August.  For general housekeeping you must add anti-foaming
agents, oxidation inhibitors and detergents.  So when you get that quart of
petro lube home from the store only about 80% of it is a lubricant and the rest
of the liquid allows the lubricant to do it's job.  

- Oil doesn't wear out... but the additives do.  What happens to the additives
that wear out and loose their effectiveness?  They swim around in the oil and
pollute that which they at one time were helping.  In addition to polluting the
soup, the function which they were providing they are now not.  And once again
life is tough for the overtaxed petro oil.

- Synthetics have all the lubrication characteristics of petro lubes but can
perform, unaided, over a wider range of temperatures.  They have much much less
in the way of additives, I think >96% pure base stock, therefore can do their
job better and longer with less self-polution.  

- Longivity aside, synthetics always perform better in all known wear tests,
particularly the 'three-ball' tests.  

- Let's see now, synthetics last longer (I change mine every 25kmi, filter every
3kmi), lubricate better, and pollute less. Your call, gentle reader.

- Typical oil filters filter particles down to the 20 micron range.  I
understand that FRAM is good to about 10-12 micton.  The Amsoil filters are good
to around 4 microns.  With a filter of any kind the better job it does the more
often it needs to be serviced.

- I found two good articles on synthetics:
http://www.euro.net/TDRS/MINIWEB/syn_oil.html   
http://wj.net/f-body/trivia/syn_oil.html

- Regards,  Gross Scruggs  87 5kTQ (78k, synthetics, mods to follow)