Is AmazonBasics Full Synthetic Motor Oil better than Mobil 1? Let's find out!

if you like me one of the biggest expenses you have is your automobile and you want your automobile to last as long as possible and operate as efficiently as possible so should you trust amazonbasics full synthetic engine oil now that's a pretty good price for under $20 you can purchase five quarts that's not much more than conventional oil and it's a lot less than a lot of other full synthetic brands such as Mobil 1 so the question remains should you trust it well today we're gonna do some testing to find out which one of these brands is the best also just as a reminder I'm not sponsored by Mobil 1 amazonbasics or Valvoline I do independent testing viewers requested this video and that's why we're doing it so let's get the testing underway and see which one these brands is the best well I don't have a multimillion-dollar oil testing lab there are some oil properties that can be tested easily to compare oil performance and the first test will be measuring cold temperature oil flow why does this matter when an engine is first started you really want that oil flowing as soon as possible to begin lubricating the engine so the oil that will be testing will be placed in the freezer that's at 15 below zero Fahrenheit we'll leave it in there for 24 hours and later in the video we'll come back and test it to see how each product performs before we move on to our next test you'll notice that all major brands of oil have an American Petroleum Institute donut which includes two important pieces of information it includes the viscosity grade viscosity is a measure of the resistance of a fluids flow in a 10w30 oil for example the 10 w w stands for winter simply means that an oil must have a certain maximum viscosity or flow at low temperature to lower the W number the bed of the oils called temperature performance the 30 and 10w30 simply means that the oil must flow within a certain viscosity limits at 212 degrees Fahrenheit let's face it while these products are rated the same in the lab environment to meet the minimum requirements in the real world it gets colder and it gets hotter than what they're tested at so let's see how they perform at each temperature extreme the second piece of information that we're interested in is the tude letter code at the top of the donut both the Valvoline and the mobile one are rated for SN which simply means that both of these boils are designed to provide improved high-temperature deposit protection for Pistons more stringent sludge control and seal compatibility the amazonbasics is actually rated for SN plus it's what benefits to SN plus rated oil products offer over SN bid dress increasing impact of low-speed pre-ignition and turbocharged gasoline direct and action engines what is low-speed pre-ignition low-speed pre-ignition is simply an abnormal combustion process at low engine speeds and wished the fuel air mixture in the combustion chamber ignites before spark timing this can cause engine knock broken spark plugs and cracked pistons and in severe cases catastrophic engine failure with all that said you really don't need the SN plus designation unless you own a turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine since each one of these products claim that it contains anti-wear additives we're going to be testing each product on the lubricity tester and comparing the amount of where that takes place I have a separate video that explains how to lubricity tester works so please consider checking it out in this test to be weighing the bearings before and after the test and measuring the scar on the bearing [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] very interesting results on the lubricity test the Valvoline is on the left amazonbasics is in the middle and the mobile one is on the right obviously both synthetic oils really tore up the Valvoline however it's a very close race between both the Mobil 1 in the Amazon with Mobil 1 clearly coming in first place but amazonbasics really didn't do that bad when you consider the price of the oil calculating the area for an ellipse the size of the scart and the mobile one bearing is 12 point 4 square millimeters so the size of the scar on the mobile one bearing is nearly 26 percent smaller than the Valvoline bearing also the mobile one scar is approximately 9 percent less than amazonbasics scar regarding the amazonbasics the size of the scar is 17 percent less than the Valvoline scar very impressive after sitting in the freezer overnight is time to conduct the cold temperature oil flow test I have to admit I was rather surprised to see the amazonbasics oil hit the slide first after all Mobil 1 is an amazing product in the end amazonbasics won the race by a solid 2 inches over Mobil 1 and both brands beat Valvoline by a solid six inches demonstrating their superior cold flow capability the next test will be heating up each one of these coils in a very similar manner to the no act volatility test using a little bit different process since we don't have the multi-million dollar equipment setup at most oil testing labs have the first thing I'm going to do is measure the way that each one of these coffee pots the second thing I'm going to do is then fill each one of these cups with the respective motor oil that be testing and then I'm going to weight each one then I'm going to add the contents into the containers and weigh the container and the contents together for a total weight after the test we're going to measure how much of the contents actually evaporated off [Music] I'm adding a little oil to each container just to make sure we're pretty close to 200 grams Amazon is now 407 grams and began at 207 grams Valvoline is at 442 grams it originally started off at 242 grams and Mobil 1 is now at 431 grams and originally began at 232 grams if you want to protect your engine and keep it running smoothly you just don't want an oil that's going to evaporate quickly the appropriate tests to measure the vaporators loss is known as the no act volatility test the no act test involves heating the oil up to 482 degrees Fahrenheit for a period of one hour along with constant air flow since I don't have this special piece of test equipment I'm only going to heat the oil up to 400 degrees for a period of two hours this test exposes oil to some high temperature as well as air to simulate conditions in the area around the top of piston rings of the engine I've rotated the position of each coffee pot every 5 minutes just in case one part of the electric griddle was slightly hotter than another spot the Valvoline appears to have the most vapor compared to the Amazon and Mobil 1 each of the products has had a chance to cool off so i'ma go ahead and weigh each one of these one at a time beginning with Valvoline gaveling start off at 442 grams is down to 439 Amazon's started off at 407 grams it lost a total of 1 gram 406 Mobil 1 started off at 431 grams it's down to 430 grams [Music] so how did heat one of these oil brands perform after they've been exposed to a significant amount of heat we're gonna place these oil products in the freezer again and rerun the flow test to see how they perform [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we'll have to admit I'm really impressed at the amazonbasics full synthetic engine oil testing it actually performed extremely well against Mobil 1 but one does seem to have a better film strength however amazonbasics flows better in cold temperatures even after it's been cooked for a couple of hours pretty impressive performance would I use this oil in a vehicle absolutely in fact a near the end of an oil change interval in one of my vehicles I need to change that oil really soon and I've noticed that it is used less oil than normal now in the past I've used a synthetic blend and of course that synthetic blend is most likely evaporating off a little faster than a synthetic wood as we saw in the evaporative testing just as a reminder I don't make a dime if you buy this product I'm not invested in amazonbasics in any way I don't even have an affiliate account because I don't want to be tied to selling products of any sort my objective is to provide unbiased testing I get all my video ideas from you guys you requested it so thanks for the request please keep those ideas coming and I'll keep making videos please take care and I look forward to next time

Channel: Project Farm

Views: 4,085,449

Rating: 4.9182467 out of 5

Keywords: Seafoam, oil, sea foam, lucas, marvel mystery oil, marvels marvel, mystery oil, engine, seefoam, Sea foam, does seafoam work, amsoil, synthetic, jb weld, weld, project farm, mobil 1, mobile one, mobile 1, mobil one, mobil 1 synthetic oil, mobil 1 fully synthetic oil, amazonbasics oil, amazonbasics synthetic oil review, amazonbasics full synthetic motor oil, valvoline, synthetic oil lubricity, noack volatility test, engine oil, synthetic oil, motor oil

Id: a9DWGtXpYUc

Length: 10min 41sec (641 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 11 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Says on the bottle Warren Distribution so it's probably similar to MAG 1, Polar, Accel Premium, Craftsman, and Gumout.

Wonder if this is like generic brand cereal.

[u/[deleted]]

so am i wasting money buying royal purple for my 18 year old honda or not

[u/Digging_For_Ostrich]

TL;DW: It's good. High performance at low temperatures, and the expert said he would absolutely be using it in his next change.

[u/Deezle530]

Valvoline wasn't full synthetic, im sure the test would be closer if they had the same type, but like someone else said, most of these have the same supplier or same company who provides the low cost product.

[u/plurwolf7]

I just watched ten minutes of an oil comparison video and I regret nothing.

[u/[deleted]]

TIL that you can ship motor oil through the mail apparently.

[u/backscratchopedia]

Forbidden coffee

[u/LeglessLegolas_]

The amazon basics brand is such a smart evolution of the amazon business model.

[u/[deleted]]

royal purple has been my go for my project race car, but i used normal oil in the daily