Posted by Steve G on October 09, 19100 at 20:30:00:
In the November 2000 issue of Car and Driver there is an interesting article by Pat Bedard about synthetic motor oil. Apaprently back in late 1997 Castrol changed the formulation of its Syntec synthetic motor oil. They eliminated the polyalphaolefin(PAO) base stock, which had defined the oil as synthetic. It was replaced with a hydroisomerized petroleum base stock.
Mobil cried foul, and took it to the National Advertising Division(NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. Castrol claimed their hydroisomerized base oils provided similar properties to the PAOs, but at half the cost.
Turns out in the 1990s the SAE and API backed off from their old definition of synthetics, which left a lot of room for new interpretations. So the NAD allowed Castrol to call their new formulation a synthetic.
The article states that Castrol says there will be no price reduction, even if Castrol is using a lower-cost base stock.
Boy, you thought choosing an oil was tough before! Now we'll have to read the fine print to see how "synthetic" the synthetic is.
I guess this is a trickle-down from President Clinton's rule on ambiguous meaning of words.
Steve G