2 stroke oils: Full Synthetic vs Synthetic-Blend

Last thing we need is another "my oil is better than your oil" thread but my post is intended to get opinions/facts about full synthetic vs synthetic-blend. We know that there are quality brands (JASO-FD Certified and meets ISO L-EGD) in both categories. But for some reason, Stihl, for example, is such a believer in full-syn that it doubles the warranty on its equip. if one buys a six-pack of HP-Ultra full-syn. Thus, if Stihl thinks it's products on HP Ultra will be less likely to return for warranty work, that's a huge vote from the manufacturer for full-syn. With that premise in mind, I looked for & found that Stens offers 24 bottles of full-syn for a mere $34.62 (24 x 2.6oz. = 62.4oz. or just under a gallon). It's also JASO-FD Certified and meets ISO L-EGD. I looked at it's MSDS and could not find who makes it for Stens, not that the maker is all that critical since it has the highest ratings.

Folks, Stens full-syn sounds like a compelling choice given that Amazon sells a six-pack of HP-Ultra for 24.99; thus 24 bottles would come to around $100.

Am I missing something here?

now days where machining of line trimers has better precision than that of Apollo 12 , engine makers can tailor the life of an engine.
For some silly reason then marketing & legal branch of most engine makers which consists of people who have never mowed or trimmed in their lives decided that the general public were so stupid that they could not change the fuel-oil ratios.
So up until the EPA forced then to change they kept the fuel-oil ratio the same as in the days when you made an emulson of engine oil & petrol.
As you have noticed there is a reasonable amount of profit in selling fully synthetic 2 stroke oil .
Stihl know that their stuff will do 10 years standing on it's head using standard 2 stroke oil let alone semi sync so it is nothing more than a marketing ploy to keep yo coming back into the Stihl shop.

Stens down here did a similar thing till their distributor went bust with Optima brand oil.
Used from new they doubled the makers engine warranty.

a fully synthetic oil can be better than a semi which itself can be better than standard oil.
However if it is value is a different story.
A Rolls Royce & Lada will both take your kids to school and your kids will not learn any more regardless of which car they travel in.
But one will cost a lot more to run than the other.

A gallon is 128 ounces, not 64.

cpurvis said:

A gallon is 128 ounces, not 64.

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Your'e right; 4 32oz. qts makes a gallon, not 2 qts ... which I had in my head for some reason. Knew I shoulda paid more attention to arithmetic in grade school.

So, the Stens product is not as good a deal as I had originally thought but still (no pun) a good bit cheaper than HP Ultra ... around $70 vs $100 in the 2.6 oz. bottles.

The oil mix bottles have a date code they were made or filled. I don't keep 5 years or so worth of any oils for this reason. The oil stays ok it is the additives that degrade.

Just my .02

Which reminds me, just got our old S10 Blazer out of storage since 2014, probably should change that oil today. Guess I needed a kick in the butt to get going.

tom3 said:

Which reminds me, just got our old S10 Blazer out of storage since 2014, probably should change that oil today. Guess I needed a kick in the butt to get going.

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Usually works for me, I gotta do my oil change & service to my truck...

No real facts on this one, but just relaying what a surprisingly competent Stihl dealer tech told me about Stihl tools and fuel/oil mix.

He said the claim (by Stihl) of the semi-synthetic vs the "HP Ultra" is that the full synthetic oil residue build up is less than the semi-synthetic when burnt. The claim is that it creates much less carbon build up on the piston face, on the valves, and exhaust.


In terms of doubling the warranty, [in my opinion] that's just a ploy to get you to buy their fuel/oil products. Also, if I remember correctly, I think the warranty double thing only applies if you use their motomix stuff (the can of fuel/oil mix) not just the oil bottle. That stuff is very expensive, something like $8/gal.
In that case, you would likely spend more on their gas/oil mix than the tool is worth over a period of a few years...

well it comes back to just about the only actual factual thing Castrol has ever said in their advertising
Oils ain't oils.
Most 2 stroke oil is made from Australian Bass Strait crude because it has 0 phos. 0 sulphur and almost 0 ash
Thus a standard 2 stoke oil made from it would be better then a semi-synthetic made from Texas crude and very near as good as a fully synthetic.

It would always be better than any oil made from Canadian oil sands deposits.
Oil is something very people seem to understand.
While you can make almost any petro chemical compound from any crude the cost will be different depending upon what crude you start with.
The art of refining is to use the crude that makes optimum profit from the product you are refining.
For 4 decades Aust was "self sufficient" oil wise but not one drop of petrol was made from Aussie crude.
We made distilate & lubricating oils which we exported to Arabia in return for petrol or Arabian crude to refine into petrol locally.
If we made petrol from the local crude the ex-refinery price would be nearly double that of refining Arabian crude.
And Arabian crude varies from one oil field to another .

Synthetics, which are not actually synthetic unless made from LPG or veggie oil are simply what happens when you have to pull a crude down into all of it's parts then recombine it with just the parts you want.
Which is basically the same as the difference between farm grade chemicals and assay grade chemicals.

Because synthetics cost a bucket load more to make then they are marketed much more heavily, much of which is hype.

It is funny that the wine market expects people to understand that the chablis grown in this field on this farm will be different to the chabis grown in that field on that farm.
Yet the oil companies expect us to believe that all oils are the same regardless where they come from.