Over the Top
by Ed Newman
AMSOIL Marketing & Advertising Manager
This article appeared
in National Oil & Lube News, November 2005
Hollywood seems to have become bewitched by the notion that audiences no longer want character development or a complex story. Today’s films seem all about giving movie goers a thrill ride of car chases, crashes, gunplay, fist fights and explosions, with a little skin thrown into the mix for seasoning.
Novelists and fiction writers all know that the reader has to be willing to believe in the fiction the writer is creating. “Suspension of disbelief” is what keeps readers turning pages. The masters keep us hooked by creating a consistency within the context of the story so that even a character like Gollum in Lord of the Rings becomes believable in the context of the story.
What bad writers do, and too many screenwriters these days, is to stop caring whether the details are believable. Now with a book the reader can always throw it down in disgust, but very few people leave movie theaters. (I can count on one hand the number of times I have left.) Even if people don’t leave, they do become inwardly disconnected, disappointed.
Most movies rely on a little suspension of disbelief, but too often action films expect us to accept a lot of ridiculous happenings. The movie Speed has its share of preposterous situations, but when Sandra Bullock commandeers a city bus over an expanse of unfinished highway you can almost hear the audience groan, “No way.”
With James Bond, of course, we’ve come to expect the impossible. Sure, it’s over the top when 007 sneaks his way onto the space shuttle and commandeers it to the bad guy Drax’s space station in Moonraker. But hey, that’s why he’s “Bond, James Bond.”
What about synthetic oil? How do we differentiate between those claims that are true, even remarkable, and those which are over the top? You know what I am talking about. There are three that I want to address in here briefly.
Claim One: Extended drain intervals
Claim Two: Fuel economy
Claim Three: Quick lubes can make money promoting synthetics
IT’S SCIENTIFIC
During its 33+ year history, synthetic oil has been subjected to countless scientific studies with ample documentation. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) routinely publishes the findings of these studies, presenting them at international colloquiums and other industry gatherings.
Here’s a paper, presented by The Lubrizol Corporation, titled Performance Comparisons of Synthetic and Mineral Crankcase Lubricant Base Stocks, by D.E. Ripple and J.F.Fuhrman. In this 1983 paper, Ripple and Fuhrman demonstrated how synthetics were superior in varnish performance, in viscosity increase protection, and in consumption performance, all variables having a bearing on drain intervals. In over-the-road fleet tests the synthetics went twice as long in Caterpillar diesel engines with no loss in performance.
Other papers have been written over the years demonstrating similar findings in gasoline-powered engines. In the mid-seventies the Mobil Oil Corporation presented an SAE Paper on synthetic oils with three-year drain intervals. Is a three-year drain interval over the top? No one is recommending three year drain intervals, but based on reactions by some you might think that a six month drain interval was simply untenable and as foolhardy as attempting to drive a city bus over an open expanse of missing highway.
FUEL ECONOMY
The fuel economy benefits of synthetics are likewise well documented and so generally accepted as to not even be questioned. Due chiefly to better deposit control and reduced friction, engines create power in a more efficient manner with synthetics.
How much fuel savings is over the top though? I have heard testimonies for products that throw around numbers like 20% improvement in fuel economy. One time I was at a party where I was introduced to someone who claimed to manufacture 55 gallon drums of a secret, unnamed product that would provide 25% improvement in fuel economy when mixed with your fuel. He said the product had no name but that he had developed it for the U.S. military to use in Desert Storm.
Well, that story is over the top in my book. I mean no disrespect to those who make such claims, but scientifically such claims do not seem feasible.
If the truth were told, although synthetic engine oils can modestly help reduce fuel costs, one gets the most fuel economy benefit by also putting synthetic lubricants into the transmission and differential. The cumulative effect is significant, but even here double digit claims are probably over the top.
MAKING MONEY
OK, so you believe in the benefits of synthetics for your customers. How do you make money if customers don’t come in as often? A quick lube is a business, not a charity.
There are two parts of the equation that need attention here. First is the reality that motorists are coming in less often already. More than five years ago the average motorist was changing his or her oil 2.7 times a year. This is eroding further so that some estimates are that people will change their oil twice a year by 2010.
Second, how you price your synthetic oil change is the real variable. Over and over again I hear comments from quick lube owners who are finding that the market is bigger than they ever imagined for synthetic oils, and that profits are good, even with extended drains.
Honest doubts about an idea you haven’t tried are normal. At some point, however, we should let the facts speak. To close one’s ears and deny that what is happening is happening… now that is over the top.