As drivers look to improve the cost of driving, they are increasingly looking for cars that offer greater fuel economy and better efficiency. Key to ensuring these new, cleaner and better performing engines operate to the optimum level, however, are motor oils. The trend is demanding ever lower viscosity products to be offered from motor oil manufacturers.
Stepping up to the mark in this regard, perhaps unsurprisingly, are the major players in the oil and lubricant industry. With Fuchs, Shell, Mobil and Q8 all releasing ever thinner motor oils to gain greater levels of performance in these new-generation engines, oil classifications have moved rapidly from 20W-50s to where we are now, with the 0W category increasingly becoming the norm.
As a result, the industry has seen an increasing product range from the major oil manufacturers, with tailored lubricants for each engine, each manufacturer and each provider also a growing demand.
It is a marked change from where the industry was at just 10 years ago, where the standard oil across most engines was adequate. However, the days of a semi-synthetic 10W-40 engine lubricant are long gone, with every Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) having clear and precise requirements.
As much as every OEM has its own demand for its products, so too have there been advancements in car design, driving methods and styles, and even the fuel that is being used. This upshot is demanding an even greater clarity of oil development from Shell, Q8, and Fuchs, among others.
Underpinning it all, of course, is the essentialness of motor oil, which can see heavy-duty engines use up more than a third of all the energy produced by the fuel going directly into reducing friction and resistance. Just in general day-to-day use, power to friction ratios from the fuel can be a fifth. The right oil helps reduce these parameters.
