Mobil Claims New Motor Oil Can Save You Over $400

by Benjamin Jones on April 6, 2008



Ever wondered if using a certain kind of oil could actually help you use less oil? With the recent introduction of its “Advanced Fuel Economy” 0w-20 and 0w-30 motor oils, Mobil is saying yes to this question.

For years, auto manufacturers have been building engines that use lighter and lighter weight oils in order to reduce friction and increase fuel economy. Most notably, the late Honda Insight was built to use 0w-20 motor oil, which is the lightest motor oil I’ve ever seen used in an auto engine. As of writing, most vehicles seem to have moved to 5w-20 or 5w-30 oil weights, something manufacturers like to claim saves a small (~1%) amount of fuel.

Now, according to Mobil, they have developed a new formula that can increase fuel economy up to 2%. For a 20mpg vehicle paying $3/gallon of gasoline, this translates to a $441 savings over a 150,000 mile lifespan. This “low friction,” synthetic motor oil is designed to be used in engines that are marked for thicker oil weights. This means that your new Honda Civic, which would normally take 5w-20 motor oil, will operate just fine on Mobil’s lighter Advanced Fuel Economy 0w-20 oil. For cars running 5w-30, you can make the switch to the 0w-30 version to try to pick up your 2% savings.

According to Mobil, this oil eliminates friction in 4 key areas:

    1. Valve Train – Being lighter, the oil flows more quickly to the camshaft and valves to prevent friction at startup.
    2. Piston & Cylinder – Lots of friction occurs between the pistons and the cylinder walls, some of which is reduced by Mobil’s new Advanced Fuel Economy oils.
    3. Oil Pump – It is more difficult to pump thicker oils through the oil pump, and low viscosity oils reduce some of these losses.
    4. Crankshaft – Friction at the connection between the rods and the crankshaft is constant and important – lower viscosity oils reduce the amount of friction in this location.

So, this new oil is definitely interesting, but is it revolutionary? Not really. Do I believe the claims? Perhaps, 2% isn’t much of a huge claim, but it’s also so small that no one is likely to try to quantify it. Perhaps Mobil is going to push this new oil banking on the fact that no one will ever try to verify its claims.

What do you think?

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{ 6 comments }

1 GenKreton April 6, 2008 at 4:42 pm

Will it be worth the increased price tag if the claims are true? That’s the tougher question. Mobil gains nothing by saving you from buying their gas. They gain everything with good marketing though. If this wasn’t making them more money, the finance guys would’ve never let it out.

2 vz893 April 29, 2008 at 7:32 am

Since most people don’t own their wehicles for 150,000 miles, cost savings at the 50,000 mile mark is much more relevent. According to Mobil 1, by using the 0w20/0w30 fe oils, at 50,000 miles, you will save $147. With a 5 quart jug costing about $25 at Wal-mart, doing an oil change every 7,500 miles, the new oil adds up to be $175 over 50,000 miles. With the money saved on gas by using the new fe oil, the cost of Mobil 1 0w20/0w30 oil over 50,000 will only be $28. I like using full synthetic oil for the protection and not having to change the oil every 3,000 miles, so the money saved on gas is just a bonus. Just my take on it.

3 jim July 23, 2008 at 8:45 am

I like synthetics for the very same reason that vz893 does, I have to change it less often. Considering the packaging (a lot of green where it used to be blue), it sounds like it’s just a branding strategy to seem more green.

4 Alaa December 29, 2008 at 2:48 am

hi
i want to know how many kilometres can my car run using Mobil XHP (SAE 20W- 50)
NB: MY CAR IS (DAEWOO LANOS )

5 Roger May 1, 2009 at 4:59 pm

The real answer to extending time between oil changes is to have your oil spectroscopically analyzed. I use Blackstone for this service on almost every oil change. The data they give allows you to make the most of your oil change intervals, and we routinely get the full 10-15,000 miles from a fillup of Mobil 1 EP with a clean analysis report. Some of our cars dirty up the oil faster than others. The BMW 325 yields the cleanest reports and we’re running semi-synth to 9,000 miles. The Chevys are happy at about 12-15,000 miles with the M1 EP. Oil analysis is the only way to know how many miles you can go between changes and it allows you to get optimum life from the oil & filter, thus conserving the resource. Besides, you can “see” what’s going on in your engine, and we’ve literally saved 2 of them by knowing this info.

6 Tom March 10, 2010 at 9:08 am

I have used 0W-30 in my S-10 Blazer with no problems, I didn’t notice much of anything. I tend to think lighter oils really only benefit in the winter when it’s cold. However, when I put 0w-30 in my lawn mower, it sounded like the RPM’s were higher. One thing is for sure, a light oil will make any leaks worse so be prepared to be replacing gaskets.

When an engine gets over 100K miles, I don’t recommend using a very light oil because as the clearances increase from wear, there will be much less oil available to the last few bearings which will cause early failure.

IMHO, you should change your oil every 2500-3000 with a recommended or even slightly heavier oil if you plan to keep your car for a long time regardless of cost. But if you just want the gas mileage and you can afford to replace every couple of years, go with the super light weights.

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