I heard a rumor about Mobil 1's current synthetic oil formula. I was told that the formula is no longer a full synthetic formulation, it actually starts off part dino oil and is refined.

Mobil 1 discovered that Castrol's "Syntec" formula had petroleum oil in it, but they (Castrol) continued to market the oil as a full synthetic. Mobil 1 took them to court, because they felt that they should not have the right to market a product as full synthetic when it is not.

Well, Mobil 1 lost. The court felt that the term "synthetic" will still apply because there are enough additives added during the refining process. So Mobil 1 also reformulated their full synthetic oil using dino oil as a base (you have to do what you have to do to keep afloat in the business world) because they couldn't compete financially.

Has anyone else heard this? Or am I missing something? Do all synthetic oils actually start as dino oil anyways? I guess it's not really that big of a deal because the stuff gets changed out a 3000 miles, I just thought this was interesting.

 

From what I've seen on this forum, the new Mobil 1 seems to be better than the old Mobil 1. When Syntec was released, it was marketed as a "Synthetic Blend". I don't think Castrol was trying to fool people into thinking it was a full synthetic.

 

I've looked into it a lot. Mobil was one of the world suppliers of the base stock for most synthetic oils marketed by other brands, polyalphaolefins (PAO). Castrol started using a base stock that starts with dino oil but is then manipulated at the molecular level, hydroisomerization. Castrol started using this in their Syntec (never as a blend, except when diluted with their non-synthetic oil, and clearly marketed as a blend). A big court battle ensued and it was determined that synthetic means "something that does not occur or exist naturally",not the commonly misperceived meaning of "man made" (this was the ruling by the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus). So Castrol won. Funny thing is that for years Mobil marketed non-automotive oil using the hydroisomerization process and marketed as "full synthetic". It looked like Mobil was just trying to protect their corner of the synthetic oil base market.

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