With the ever increasing range of synthetic oil, how do you know what synthetic oil is the best? Or even whether you should use regular or synthetic oil, for your application.

How to choose the right synthetic oil

The first step in choosing the right synthetic oil for the application is to be certain you’re comparing apples with apples - or more accurately don’t confuse “synthetic oil” with fully synthetic oil! As we’ve already seen in earlier posts, not all synthetic lubes are 100% synthetic.
Here’s a summary of the groups again:

• Groups I and II are universally referred to as mineral oils.
• Group III is the tricky collection. In the USA these are referred to as synthetic though they might be extremely refined or blended mineral oils.

When it comes to choosing the correct hydraulic oil for the application, the choice is often made based solely on price!

Unfortunately this is seldom the correct choice. To make matters worse: Most lubricant misspecifications don’t lead to sudden and catastrophic failure; rather, a misspecification shortens the life of the lubricated components and, thus, goes unnoticed.

With hydraulics, there are two primary considerations when choosing the correct hydraulic oil - the viscosity grade and the hydraulic oil type. These specifications are typically determined by the type of hydraulic pump employed in the system, operating temperature and the system's operating pressure.

But it doesn't stop there. Other items for

In previous articles we’ve spoken about the benefits of selecting the correct synthetic gear oil for the application; however this would be meaningless if we didn’t explain the importance of selecting the correct synthetic gear oil viscosity.

Selecting the Gear Oil Type
In order to select which type of gear oil to use in a gearbox, you must understand the gearbox’s mode of operation. The

Why is there so much hype about selecting synthetic gear oil? Regular oil has been good enough for a hundred years or more.. I’ll explain why in this day and age it’s crucial to use synthetic gear lubricants.

Application-Associated Benefits when selecting synthetic gear oil

The following application-associated

Perhaps you've felt like a child in a candy store when wanting to choose synthetic gear oil out of a glitzy pamphlet? How frequently would you have paid for someone to teach you how to choose the best type of synthetic gear oil? Continue reading... In this 3 part series we’ll look at the subject in depth.

Just like synthetic lubricants in any application, synthetic gear oil is typically used when crude based gear oil has reached the performance limit and can no longer satisfy the application demands; for instance, at very low or high temperatures, higher than normal loads, extraordinary ambient conditions, or if they fail to meet special conditions such as flammability.

Although additives can enhance several attributes of crude based oils,

Possibly the initial motor oil performance enhancers were actually Motor Oil viscosity index modifiers: Remember STP...? In those times they were simply identified as motor oil additives.

What's a motor oil Viscosity index modifier?

(VI) is a popular technique of calibrating a fluid's change of viscosity with regards to temperature. The greater the VI, the lesser the relative change in viscosity with temperature. VI improvers (also called viscosity modifiers) are additives that improve the viscosity of the fluid all through its useful temperature range.

Viscosity modifiers are polymeric molecules that are sensitive to temperature. At low temperatures, the molecule chain shrinks and does not effect the fluid viscosity. At higher temperatures, the chain unwinds

There’s a lot of controversy about deciding on what oil to use for  any given application, no matter if it be; what engine oil to utilize or whether to use synthetic hydraulic oil.

These are the factors you want to consider when deciding on what oil to use

Crude based oil, with no additives
The first and most well-known is mineral based oil with no additives. Some of these oils