From the names of these types of motor oils, we can see that mineral oil is something obtained from petroleum, while synthetic motor oil is obtained as a result of synthesis. What else distinguishes synthetic and mineral oils and why was synthetic oil invented at all?

From experience, every car enthusiast knows that the conditions in which the engine operates are unstable. The motor cools down, heats up, during its operation, the speed, temperature, friction rate, and other things change. Therefore, the ideal motor oil for an engine could be an oil whose properties and characteristics would not change under the above conditions. But this is impossible.

Therefore, at a certain stage in the development of engine building, the issue of ensuring maximum stability of the properties of motor oil became especially relevant. And since the mineral base has its limitations, through the synthesis of molecules, a synthetic base was produced industrially, which is much less susceptible to external factors and whose properties are more stable during long-term operation.

For the first time, synthetic motor oil was used in aviation when there was a need to start engines at very low temperatures (-40 degrees Celsius and below). Mineral oil at such temperatures simply froze. Naturally, the cost of synthetic oil was very high at that time, which did not allow it to be widely used in automobile engines. Subsequently, synthetic motor oils became cheaper to produce and began to be used in the automotive industry.

So what is better – synthetic or mineral? Synthetic and mineral oil have the main difference – it is the higher stability of its properties under various operating conditions.

• Synthetics are less afraid of low temperatures and overheating.
• Synthetics retain their properties longer during operation.
• Some properties of the oil, which are mandatory for many modern engines, cannot be made on a mineral base. An example is viscosity.
• But to say that synthetics is a panacea for everything is impossible; in some cases, on the contrary, synthetics are contraindicated for the engine – this mainly applies to engines with high mileage. Even if you live in a mild climate, without sharp temperature jumps, you will still have to change the mineral oil, in any case more often than synthetics.

Semi-synthetic motor oil. Semi-synthetic motor oil is made by mixing a base where 20-50% is a synthetic component, and, accordingly, everything else is additives and a mineral base. Such oil really has much better indicators of stability of characteristics than mineral, but is inferior to synthetic. Usually, semi-synthetic motor oil is recommended to be poured into modern engines with high mileage, when the consumption of synthetic oil increases. In such situations, semi-synthetics is the optimal solution, since the probability of finding a semi-synthetic oil that meets all the manufacturer’s requirements is much higher than that of a mineral one.