hello everyone and welcome in this video
we're going to be talking about why
synthetic motor oil is better than
conventional motor oil and I'm also
going to be including a demonstration to
help prove some of these points now
there's all kinds of different ways in
which you could talk about the
differences between synthetic and
conventional motor oils but we're going
to be focusing on simply viscosity
viscosity is an oils resistance to flow
so a higher viscosity means more
resistance to flow or a thicker oil and
a lower viscosity means less resistance
to flow or a thinner oil now before
understanding the benefits of synthetic
motor oils like this Pennzoil Platinum
derived from natural gas we first need
to understand the rating system used for
motor oils you'll often hear 5w30 or 0w
20 as a rating used in cars today the
first number followed by a W is the cold
rating W stands for winter and this
means the oil behaves like an SAE 5
grade motor oil while cold but at
operating temperatures at about 100
degrees Celsius it operates like an SAE
30 grade motor oil now 30 is obviously
higher than 5 so it may seem that at
higher temperatures the oil is going to
be thicker but that's obviously not the
case as things thin out as they heat up
and so it's helpful to look at a plot of
kind of what we're talking about here so
here we have viscosity thicker at the
top thinner at the bottom here we have
temperature cold you know around zero
degrees Celsius versus hot you know
around 100 degrees Celsius and so when
you're looking at this if you were to
plot an SAE five straight grade oil it
would look something like this you know
a thinner viscosity than an SAE 30
straight grade oil and then a
multi-grade viscosity is going to have
properties of both of these so at lower
temperatures it's going to act like an
SAE 5 oh wait oil but as you can see
it's still going to thin out as it gets
to hotter temperatures where it acts
like an SI a 30 grade oil and so here if
it were to just be a 5 it'd be too thin
for operating temperature to protect the
engine but if it were to operate like an
SI 30 I'd be too thick for start-up and
so you have these multi grade
characteristics so you can kind of have
the best of both worlds you can start it
up without any issues and you can have
plenty of protection once it's at
operating temperature so how would you
create a multi grade conventional motor
oil well you're going to start
with something similar let's say we're
making a 5w30
you're going to start with something
similar to a straight grade SAE 5 motor
oil and then you're going to have
additives which you add to this in order
to give it those 5w30 characteristics so
you can add pour point depressants and
what these will do is lower the
viscosity at low temperatures and then
you can add viscosity index improvers
and what these will do is increase the
viscosity at high temperatures and so
kind of a way to think about how these
viscosity index improvers work you've
got these polymers that are all balled
up when they're cold and so it's very
easy for them to pass by one another so
you know you're going to have a low
viscosity and then as they heat up they
expand out and so they get tangled more
easily and so that increases the
viscosity because it's less easy for
them to pass by one another so you
thicken the oil at high temperatures now
of course it's still thinner than what
it will be at at low temperatures
but that said it still has a thick
enough grade to it that it protects your
engine at those higher temperatures now
the cool thing about synthetic motor
oils is that they already have a
multi-grade from the base oil so the
base oil can be formulated with
synthetic motor oils based on the
process of creating it so that already
has this multi-grade characteristic and
so you don't have to add as many or any
of these you know different additives in
order to change the characteristics of
its viscosity and so what that means is
over time it's going to retain its
viscosity grade much better than a
conventional motor oil so looking at the
oil change interval here we have
viscosity versus temperature and this is
at the beginning of your oil change
interval so you've just changed your oil
you've got brand new oil in your car
this is at the end so once you you know
you need to change the oil at this point
and so if you're looking at conventional
versus synthetic originally if you've
got 5w30 their curves are going to look
exactly the same in here so here's that
SAE 30 here's the SAE 5 and you've got
that exact same curve for both
conventional and synthetic but as I
mentioned the base oil / synthetic is
already that multi grade so over time it
doesn't really break down as much you
know you are going to have deposits and
things like that which are going to get
in there and thicken the oil but it's
going to look very similar at the end of
your oil change interval versus your
conventional is going to get thicker at
low temperatures and it's going to get
thinner at high temperatures because
these additives have started to break
down and so you'll get much better
protection with synthetic motor oil at
the end of your oil change interval if
you're using synthetic than if you were
using conventional you're going to have
less protection because it's thickened
at lower temperatures meaning you won't
have as much flow at a cold start and
it's gotten too thin at higher
temperatures meaning not enough
protection and so you know you may be
thinking okay well does this mean I can
use a synthetic oil for longer oil drain
intervals and that's not necessarily the
case at all you should certainly always
go with whatever your car manufacturer
recommends because there's all kinds of
other additives in these motor oils both
synthetic and conventional which I
haven't discussed in this video but anti
wear dispersants anti foam detergents
rust inhibitors corrosion inhibitors all
of these are going to be in both of
these motor oils conventional and
synthetic and they will wear out over
time and so for both cases you're going
to need to replace the oil at the same
interval you're just going to have
better protection with the synthetic
towards the end of your interval than
you would with a conventional based on
the viscosity differences okay so now
let's check out a demonstration so here
we have four heavy-duty engine oil
samples all cooled to negative 35
degrees Fahrenheit on the Left we have
used and new conventional 15 w 40 and on
the right we have new and used in a one
full oil drain interval of use synthetic
5w 40 motor oil now at this point you
may be thinking wait a minute this isn't
a fair comparison because the synthetic
has a lower cold viscosity rating so of
course it will flow faster at low temps
you're absolutely right however it's not
the main purpose of this demonstration
first off formulating a motor oil for 5w
40 rating requires the use of a
synthetic base oil as the synthetic base
oil is what gives the oil the lower
viscosity rating and second and perhaps
more important to the viewer is that you
can see the difference in viscosity
between the used and new synthetic oil
is very minimal whereas the difference
in viscosity between the used and new
conventional is very large so what does
this mean for the consumer what this
demonstrates is that towards the end of
your engine oil drain interval for your
car if you're using conventional oil you
will have significantly
change the viscosity properties of your
oil meaning less protection using
synthetic however means you'll retain
the viscosity properties of the oil for
a longer duration and thus your engine
will be better protected towards the end
of the oil train interval so thank you
all for watching and of course a huge
thank you to Pennzoil for sponsoring the
video if you guys have any questions or
comments feel free to leave them below
everyone and welcome in this video we're
going to be changing the oil in my 1999
Acura Integra and big thanks to Pennzoil
for sponsoring this video
they have a line of synthetic motor oils
which are created with natural gas as
the base oil now before we get into the
oil change let's talk about why you
might use natural gas as a base oil so
an oil is composed of about 80% of a
base oil and then the other 20% of
what's in