Increase Fuel Efficiency with AMSOIL

You often hear claims of “increased fuel efficiency” in advertisements and most of the time they don’t add up.  Fuel economy though can be boosted through the simple law of physics by using lower viscosity oils, such as a 0W-20 or 5W-20, (now recommended by several car manufactures) or simply using synthetic oils of the proper SAE grade.  In layman’s terms, the lighter the weight of the oil regardless of it’s base, the less internal drag it creates, and in a perfect world it will relate to better fuel mileage.  Fuel economy can be further enhanced by using good synthetic oils as they have an added benefit over regular oil with what is called a lower co-efficient of drag.  This will relate into a small gain in fuel economy, but may not be noticeable to most motorists. 

Good synthetics also do better by lowering internal drag when the ambient temperature drops around 50 degrees and lower because it’s viscosity isn’t changed by temperature as much as regular oil is.  If you were to do an experiment by placing some regular petroleum oil and synthetic oil of the same viscosity in individual glass beakers in your freezer over night, you would see quite a difference in the morning.  The regular oil would hardly pour out of its beaker if at all and the synthetic oil would easily pour out of its beaker.  What this experiment demonstrates is the potential for better fuel mileage during the warm up phase of your winter driving experience.  In an attempt to help increase fuel economy for over and off the road truckers, the manufactures went to using synthetic gear lubes as factory fill for the transmissions and differentials several years ago.  I remember before this happened truckers would not be able to shift into higher gear in the cold morning until may be some 20 miles or so had been driven to warm up the fluids that were acting almost like a brake because the fluid was so thick causing terrible fuel mileage during this warm up phase.  Now with synthetic fluids it is almost like driving during the summer.  So from my studies and experience I believe most mileage gains or losses are achieved during the cold weather warm up phase.  So it’s your choice to conserve your fuel expenses with synthetic fluids or waste your resources using what is considered cheaper regular fluids that can act like a brake during colder weather.

George Douglas
Lubricant Consultant