t6 motor oil not fully synthetic?

[goquattro12]

I use mobile 1 i hear its not fully synthetic anymore...need to change...
why does shell's t6 motor oil say fully senthtic based on the back label? and it only says synthetic on the front label not fully synthetic.

[A4iel]

There different groups of synthetic base stock oils. There are many arguments of what group should be marketed as "full synthetic". Mobil 1 i believe is classified as a group IV Polyalphaolefin (PAO) base and Shell T6 i believe is a Hydrocracked/Hydroisomerized group III base. There are arguments saying that group iv is not "fully synthetic"....But to go off tangent a little bit I've been running mobil 1 0w-40 for almost two years and had no sludge issues or anything. But I have decided to try out T6 oil because its cheaper and people on the forums seem to have good reviews on it.

[Taloras]

Everyone and their mother on here has run Rotella T6 for thousands of miles without incident, myself included. Oil analyses people have done on it come back perfectly decent after use. What more could a person want out of an oil?

[somebody5788]

Coppied from here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_oil


Types
Synthetic Base Stocks

Synthetic motor oils are man made oils from the following classes of lubricants:

Polyalphaolefin (PAO) = American Petroleum Institute (API) Group IV base oil
Synthetic esters, etc. = API Group V base oils (non-PAO synthetics, including diesters, polyolesters, alklylated napthlenes, alkyklated benzenes, etc.)
Hydrocracked/Hydroisomerized = API Group III base oils. Chevron, Shell, and other petrochemical companies developed processes involving catalytic conversion of feed stocks under pressure in the presence of hydrogen into high-quality mineral lubricating oil. In 2005, production of GTL (gas-to-liquid) Group III base stocks began, the best of which perform much like polyalphaolefin. Group III-base stocks are widely permitted to be marketed as synthetic motor oil with few exceptions where they are not allowed to be marketed as "synthetic" (for example, Germany).

Semi-synthetic oil

Semi-synthetic oils (also called 'synthetic blends') are blends of mineral oil with no more than 30% synthetic oil. Designed to have many of the benefits of synthetic oil without matching the cost of pure synthetic oil. Motul introduced the first semi-synthetic motor oil in 1966.[14]

Lubricants that have synthetic base stocks even lower 30%, high-performance additive packs consisting of esters can also be considered synthetic lubricants. In general, ratio of the synthetic base stock is used to define commodity codes among the customs declarations of tax purposes.

[AudiNFS]

I'm a T6er as well. No issues

[Fourplay]

I use mobile 1 i hear its not fully synthetic anymore...need to change...
why does shell's t6 motor oil say fully senthtic based on the back label? and it only says synthetic on the front label not fully synthetic.

Mobil 1 0W40 was and is the only synthetic oil Mobil has in the US.

There are only 4 widely available Group IV oils (fully synthetic in your words).

Mobil 1 0W40
German Castrol 0W30 (Castrol Edge - syays Made in Germany on the package)
Pennzoil Platinum Euro Formula 5W30
Valvoline SynPower 5W30

Anything else will probably not be fully synthetic. In the United States, oil companies are permitted to advertise GTL Group III oils as synthetic or fully synthetic when they still come from petroleum.