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A refinery ALWAYS produces mineral oil which consists of many different molecule forms. These oils are available in various qualities better ones and worse. E.g. hydro-crack oils (HC) are oils which are refinished in the refinery, the oils used for the HC oils are already of the better qualities. The oil molecules get cracked (hydro-cracked) in a special process to gain an approximate uniform molecule structure of the oil.

The fully synthetic oils get totally disassembled and re-assembled, the structure of the molecules looks totally different compared to the base oil. The oils used for synthetic oils have basically the highest quality and the structure of the molecules is most likely the finished lubricant.

Part synthetic oils are oils where synthetic oil has been added to the base oil. The worst oils are the solely mineral based and best the fully synthetic, the HC- and part-synthetic oils are somewhere in between. If HC or part-synthetic oils are better is hard to say as this more or less is dependent on the additive-package and so it’s the actual product which has to be analysed.

The manufacturing price of a motor oil depends on the base oil, or the base oil mixtures, where the fully synthetic base oils are by far the most expensive and the additive package added which determines if it’s going to be a good or an extraordinary motor oil.

Another fact that increases the price for the motor oil are the car manufacturer approvals which will be sought for the product. Each manufacturer approval on the oil can makes the motor oil more expensive, as each of them cost the the oil company lots of money.

2nd selection mineral base oil and a simple additive package = cheap DIY superstore motor oil
High class fully synthetic base oil and a modern high performance additive package = top quality motor oil

If this top motor oil then has many car manufacturer approvals it can’t be sold that cheap otherwise the oil company would be losing money on it.

It’s important to know though that the price for motor oil at your local car dealer or gas station is by far too high. If we take a look on the pricing for e.g. the Castrol oil for my bimmer the price for the Castrol SLX 0W-30 LL04 is about 23 € the same oil can be purchased on the internet for about 9 € and these internet guys make some profit too so there’s still a lot of money to make with motor oils. It’s much better to buy first class fully synthetic motor oils on the internet for the price of crappy motor oil from your local DIY superstore.

Another important thing to take into consideration is that the lubricant companies are not required to fullfill any regulations for the mixing ratio of their part synthetic or HC oils as ther are no such regulations. This means a part synthetic oil could consist of 95% mineral oil and 5% synthetic oil and it would still be as part synthetic as an oil based on 50% part synthetic and 50% synthetic components. Usual mixture ratios are 50%-50% up to 70%-30% whereas the bigger amount always consists of the cheaper mineral oils. To protect yourself from these doubts about what base oils are used it is much easier to buy a fully synthetic motoroil and be safe.

more to come…