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Speaker 1: Ruby.
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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Grown Up Stuff. I'm Leah Palmery and I'm Matt Stillow and today's episode.
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Speaker 3: Brought to you by Shell Pen's Oil.
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Speaker 1: Well, have you.
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Speaker 2: Thinking differently about your car the next time you're on a joy ride or even just a trip to the grocery store.
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Speaker 3: That's right. And you know, while we talked about general car maintenance in a previous episode, today we'll be chatting with Sean Wynn, a lubricant technical specialist at Shell, and he's going to plumb the depths, as it were, on all things oil changes and what exactly is going on and then engine of yours more than you've probably ever expected to know.
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Speaker 2: That is the truth, Matt. I admittedly knew very little about oil changes and honestly cars in general. But my favorite thing about Sean is not just how much he knows, but how confident and excited he is to talk about the technology of engines and the oils that keep them running. Who knew?
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Speaker 3: Who knew? Sean really explained the ways that we can best take care of our vehicle so that they run their best and last as long as possible.
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Speaker 2: Yes, Matt, because you know what our cars to be thriving too.
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Speaker 3: They do. Yeah, and now here Sean.
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Speaker 4: Well, my name is Sean Wynn. I'm a lubricant technical expert for Shell. Been working with Shell for twenty five plus years, been in the industry for more than thirty three years, and my specialty is automotive lubricants. I've spent some time in Greace research, crude all research, formulation research, and so enjoy the time that I've had and look forward to spending a little bit of time with you and your audience.
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Speaker 2: Yay, I mean, I think the first question we have to ask you is what is a lubricant technical expert. I've not seen this title on LinkedIn before, so can you tell us a little bit about what does that even mean for your job?
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Speaker 4: Well, it varies depending on your specialty. Right, I mentioned that I am automotive engine expert. I'm trained to based on my years of experience in formulation for automotive and engine oils. It makes me, I guess you could say, an expert in the automotive engine oils.
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Speaker 2: You're certainly more an expert than I am, and I'm going to venture to guests and say more than Matt is as well. So congratulations to you. Okay, well, we are going to talk to you today about oil changes. I know this is going to sound silly, but I also know I'm not the only one wondering what the answer is to this question. What even is an oil change? What is happening during this process? Why is it necessary for the longevity of our cars and the engine? Feel free to get nerdy and sciency about this. We want to know exactly what is going on in there.
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Speaker 4: As you know, we're told over the years to change our engine oils, right, and engine oils if you're going to get nerd up is over time it gets consumed because of combustion products. You're going to have blowbys, basically gases from the combustions and molecules that would come across. And as engine oils get cooked and heated, typically can go up as high as two hundred and sixty degrees up at the three hundred degrees and even that the pistons can go above five hundred degrees, So in a sense, it causes them to age the same way we see our cooking oil. You know, if we use it a couple of times, see it kind of turned dark. And oil has to be there to keep everything lubricated. Oil has to come in and cool the engine. It works with your cooling system and as you change the temperature, and as you increase the temperature, you cause that oil to break down. When you add in contaminants like water, like fuel like air, and carbon monoxide, it ages the oil and degrades the oil. Our whole purpose of oil is a couple of the major fundamental lubricate, protect, keep it cool, and prevent wear, four fundamental things. Past seventy years of engine oil manufacturing, fundamentally, that's what they are, and they've changed over the years based on engine design. We haven't even talked about the additives yet. Say you're piston needs antiwar so that as it moves, it doesn't get worn away and loosen up over time. And so as the oil ages, it use up those additives, You use up those ingredients. You have antioxidants that is there to help keep the oil life longer, but it gets used up. You have antiware components that help to coat the engine so that it becomes a sacrificial layer. You have detergents to help to remove the combustion, to remove the dark material, the soot, the ash, so those material get used up, and it gets to a point when the manufacturer recognized, and we too, the oil manufacturer recognized, it's time to change. It's time to refresh, drop the oil, put new oil in. So hopefully that's a short, long winded answer.
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Speaker 2: That's enough of an answer to let us know why you're an expert for sure.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And you don't really think about it, But you mentioned kind of like it's not all that different than cooking oil. I think about like, you know, sometimes I'm cooking with oil like thirty minutes and I'll throw some carrots and onions in there, and then like I'll go to like start cooking some meters and they're like, oh, let's get this oil. It's already old. It's been thirty minutes, and I already want to get this oil out of here. So how long do these processes take to like really get to the point where it's degraded and that you are going to want to change it?
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Speaker 4: Oh, it depends on many different factors. First, the engine design. Every engine behaves differently the same way when you fry fish versus frying vegetables, right, they cause different interactions and different engines will actually create different messes. Some engines are looser high performance engine versus out everyday media van or regular car. When you have turbos, they create a lot more heat in the oils. When you have different systems in the engine, over time, it ages the oil. At the same time the oil is affected by heat. Let's say you're used to running your car two hundred degrees and you have coolant issues, and it's now running harder by ten degrees celsius. In the root of thumber of the industry is that if you increase the temperature by ten degrees celsius, you basically double the oxidation rate. You're cooking the oil twice as fast. So now you have to change your oil half the mile of time. So it all is variant on the operating viscosity or operating temperature of the engine. Many other factors come to play. There's another issues out there, which we call granny cycle. Those are where our grandmas would just take the car once a week, go to the grocery store or go to church, and then come back home five minutes later. The car barely heat up and then cool back down immediately, and so it condenses all that water accumulates in the oil and short distance driving cycles those actually creates more contaminants build up in the car and ages to oil faster. So there are many different factors along the way. One of my recommendations is that you have those type of cycles where you go to work maybe eight miles and it's less than twenty minutes, take it out for a weekend drive it because it helps to evaporate all the fuel that's burned up, all the water. It actually helps you extend the life of that oil.
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Speaker 3: And how long would you recommend going for a quick driving.
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Speaker 4: Minimum twenty five minutes, so a weekend drive, you know, for a highway drive, keep it at constant temperature for about twenty five minutes. That should be enough to burn a lot of those contaminants off.
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Speaker 3: That's so interesting because I would have thought would have been the opposite, where like you know, they're not using the car at all, and so see, this is why we talk to the experts. Okay, so if it varies differently between different types of drivers, different types of cars, then how do we really know when we should be taking our cars in to get the oil changed.
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Speaker 4: That's a good question. First of all, every car owner needs to read their owner's manual. An owner's manual will tell first of all, what viscosities to use, what type of specifications you need, and what's the recommended oil drained base on your driving stop. We call it regular driving style or the granny cycle. If you're towing, you're doing a lot of heat driving, you're driving in the dusty climates, those of what we'll call severe driving. So those are some of the determines. If the owner's manual say three thousand miles, I would say do three thousand miles. Now, that is all based on the experience of the manufacturer based on that engine. They've done internal studies to calculate that based on the suggested drain. The oil capacity also has a lot to do with drain interval. So as the manufacturer designed that oil, they make a good calculation based on driving cycle, speed, time of driving. All that is calculated. That's why a lot of the modern cars now have the Dumby light it's time to change your oil. It's ninety percent. My car right now says sixty percent, So I'm keeping an eye on it. Right now. As soon as I hit fifteen percent, I'm gread they changed my oil.
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Speaker 3: So you're a technical guy. You gave a technical answer, and I love that because I'm a technical guy. I do all the audio here, and so I always tell people read the manual. Read the manual, read menu. Here's the thing, you know the sean I know this. No one reads the manual. So is there a good rule of like for example, Like, I have a motorcycle, and my kind of rule of thumb is basically every spring, I've been driving it all winter, it gets all mucked up. I get it washed and I get it serviced and checked out and they change the oil then and I do that like once a year. And I'm probably more of a granny driver actually, weirdly, I only take it out, like me once a week, but I'll go for a while, like an hour or two. And so is the year, like, is that a good rule of thumb or what's the rule of thumb?
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Speaker 4: Okay, So I'm a motorcycle driver too. I do it twice a year. I recommend twice a year. I don't care. That's just me. I change it in the fall and I change it in the spring. Most manufacturers recommendation is either mileage or time, whichever comes first. So if you're a highway driver and you drive two hours to work a day, the mileage accumulation happened first. And then, of course some of the premium vehicles, Mercedes and some of the others, they have a twelve month program. They have a twelve month oil. But the oil is a premium product, it has longer reservoir capacity, so they have a longer recommendation oil change. At the same time, if you're driving a premium car, your oild changes is not sixty bucks or one hundred bucks. It's a couple hundred dollars, so it pays for it based on the volume and the oil that you're buying. A lot of us nowadays, we don't grow up with full service gas stations anymore. Where the guy popped your hood, check the oil dipstick and make sure the oil level is high. It is crucial that we as consumers check our oil level once a month. You know, it's just that a little old ring there. Just pull it out and check it. Because a lot of the smaller engine vehicles have very little capacity. It has maybe four four and a half courts, and you can see vehicles losing a court. So if you lose a court you're more than twenty five percent close to twenty five percent lost in oil, So now you have less oil that would actually help to support and keep that engine clean. So having oil at the optimal condition levels is crucial in maintaining the life of that oil. The color doesn't tell you that it's turning bad. The color tells you that the oil is doing its job. It's keeping that engine clean. The engine create all that mess, and so it's trying to clean it like dawn and scrubbing your dishes. So the oil is doing the same thing. Those additives in the oil it's called detergents and dispersings, and basically that's what it is. It's helped to clean up the walls of the engines and the parts of the engine, and it keeps them from binding up together making big particles, so they stay small. They're wrapped up in the dispersing, and then when you drain the oil, they all come out. For those who want to make sure that oil lasts a long time by a more premium product.
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Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a quick.
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Speaker 1: Break, and we're back with more grown up stuff.
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Speaker 3: How do I don't? So let's say let's come time to change your oil. Why is it best to go into the shop and actually get it done? Like, what are the professionals doing that? We're just not looking for it.
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Speaker 4: I think the main reason that people go to a professional shop is you don't know what you're doing.
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Speaker 3: That's fair. I rarely do know what I'm doing.
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Speaker 4: I change all my oil at home, okay. And so it's all based on your spars and your comfort level. And if you have the tools, they change out a filter because the oil filter is there to trap those large particles, and the particles has to beyond well, I'm going to go nerd on you. You know above ten or twenty microns are the big particles who were kept trapped by the molecules by the filter because those big molecules that size would actually scrape the engine and cause a scar, and those scars are unrepairable. So the filters are there to do that. So change your filters when you change your oil is highly recommended. And they drain about eighty to ninety percent of the oil to come out of the vehicle, and then you replenish a fresh oil, replenish fresh additives into the car. All those basically allows a car to feel clean again. And if you are an oil nerd and an engine nerd like myself, you can feel and hear the sound difference of a new oil change in your car. It sounds much quieter, especially when you buy a premium synthetic like you know. For me, Okay, I'm a shell guy, so I change it with Penzel platinum products, all the type, and I see major sound improvement in lowering the sound and the smoothest of my engine just from a new oil change.
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Speaker 2: Sean, I got to tell you, I feel like I'm usually just driving along and singing to Taylor Swift, and I did not know all of this was like happening in the engine while that was also happening. So we're learning a lot clearly.
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Speaker 3: So how long can we expect it to take when we go in? And actually, how much typically does an oil change cost if you're getting it professionally done.
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Speaker 4: Well, you know in Texas it's a lot cheaper than you guys up in New York. I can tell you that you can go to a small shop and you can get an old change for twenty bucks. But you don't know the quality of the oil that you're getting. You don't know the quality of the filter that you're going to get. To go to a premium place like one of our partners, which is Jiffy Loop, which is nationwide, you get a better product at the same time, hopefully, and from my experience is that you get a little bit better service. You have a variety of different shops who advertise the five minute oil change and they do twenty point inspection, check on your fluids and all the other stuff go to the dealership. It all depends on your comfort level and what you feel is someone that you can trust. I think choosing a good shop is having a shop that you can go and have a conversation instead of coming in and just whip in whip out. I think you get better product, you get better service by having a good conversation what's your recommendation, and the knowledgeability of the counterstaff, of the management along the way, and you kind of have to do a little bit of your own research. The same way you search for a doctor, you should search for a good shop that does that. Because your car is the second most expensive item that you purchase in your life other than your house. Right and of course nowadays you know that since COVID people are keeping their cars longer. They're keeping their cars almost up to fifteen years now and helping to extend that life. And so making sure that you pick a place, change it, will regularly, maintain it regularly. Then your engine and your car will perform the way that you hope it to do and be dependable for you in the long run.
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Speaker 3: So you walk into an autopart shop and there's lots of different kinds of oils. And let's say that for most of my life I have been using a product that one of the other guys makes. What could you say that would convince me that the product you make, shell pens oil is superior.
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Speaker 4: Well, you're own my wheelhouse now, right. It gets confusing. We walk into a store and you see all the different brands, right, But for the most consumer, we're thinking, Okay, I grew up with this brand, and I trust this brand because my dad or my grandfather said this is the brand for me, and that's fine and dandy, and I think a lot of that is personal experience along the way. At the same time, do a little bit of research on the oil. You know, Internet nowadays is so good in giving unbiased opinion, So educate yourself. I think that's the first thing, and having a shop that does that. Now, if you're going to talk about penzil is the formulation and the oil manufacturer. Some consumer because they are I guess budget minded, they go for the generic brands and that's fine, and they meet the specs of the manufacturer, and that's what they're going to do. They can meet the specs. They are just enough, the same way we buy generic medicine. It's just enough. But if we want the performance, and you want a good quality performance all, then you got to go with some of the majors because they put a lot of effort in the research.
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Speaker 3: I know.
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Speaker 4: I work at the largest research center for shell globally in the world in Houston, and so we do extensive research in looking at the ingredients. I spent over a year just to trying to find one ingredient to add into our oil. I spent another year just to study how fuel affect oil. I spent another year just looking at how carbon builds up in the oil. So hopefully the consumer can see the performance at the end when they formulated, and that's what a premium brand oil will help you to do. It will help you to meet the specs and the requirements of those particular engines, and the relationships that we have with the manufacturers with the industry helps us to understand what's out there, and we developed and we tailor it based on the chemistries that were developed over the years.
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Speaker 3: It's just wild hearing you say that, like the amount of work that goes into this. You're talking about a year researching and in creating it, a year researching fuels impact on the oil. I mean, like that's just something you don't think about every day, but it's crazy to hear how much thought and effort goes into it.
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Speaker 2: You can buy your own oil and take it with you.
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Speaker 4: Right absolutely, And that's what I recommend. If you can find a shop that say hey, I'm going to bring my own oil and filter, just charge me the fee. That's the way I do it. If I get lazy, I'll go to a shop, I'll pick my bottle of oil and filter and I'll bring to a shop and say, hey, it's my oil. Charge me the fee for the service and disposal fee. I just look for a good deal whenever we have promotions within Penzil, and then I'll stock up on it and you know, I got four cars and a bike. I got changed on a regular basis. Oh well, I got to change my kids cars. They won't change the oil, so dat do?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, Well they're lucky to have you.
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Speaker 4: But they're down there with me though.
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Speaker 2: Okay, good, yeah, show them. Hold's done.
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Speaker 3: Another thing that can be kind of confusing is the numbers and letters of the kind of delineate the different types of oil. So you know, you walk into a store and you see things like ten W thirty, five W thirty. I always think of WD fourty, which is not a car oil. But what are some of these letters and numbers give us a sense of what they mean and what different types of oil are used for.
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Speaker 4: When it comes to viscosity, you want different textures. Engine oils over the years has gotten really thin if you look at engines whenin the last ten years they're multi weight viscosities because they are designing it to be used all year round, so when the winter times to come, it flows properly when there's cold, and when it's hot it behaves as a thicker oil. Now, so let's describe your example. Five W thirty The W stands for winter. I mean the oil will behave in a sense a five winter weight product when that engine is cold, but as the engine heat up, that oil will thicken up to a thirty to give you a simpler viscosity when the engine's cold, same thickness in a sense when the engine is cold as when the engine is hot. So that multiweight design is designed to do that to give the engine proper flow and viscosity film thickness. So the viscosity is important to make sure that when you look at your manual, you already know what type of viscosity you need. So your car that asks for a five W twenty motor oil should use a five W twenty motor oil. And actually the second number is the most crucial number for you to shop when you buy the oil. So if car costs for a five to twenty, you can practically use a five to twenty oil, and you can even use a zero W twenty oil is suitable. A zero weight oil or zero winter weight mean that it flows better at the colder temperatures. I mean they can handle colder temperatures better than a five winter weight. But the second number is crucial in giving your car proper protection during operation.
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Speaker 3: So I'm curious, would it be wise then to in the winter to use a different kind of oil that we might use in the summer.
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Speaker 4: Some manufacturers actually do. Some manufacturer will tell you to use a zero twenty or a zero thirty in the winter and then to use a five to twenty in the summer. Personally, I recommend the zero twenty all year round. You're going to get quicker the delivery of the oil to the upper parts of the engine faster, But as soon as the oil heats up, it behaves as a twenty weight. And as modern engines are coming out now, they're coming out with engines asking for much thin oil. In the fast five years, we saw zero W sixteen weight oils for a lot of the hybrids, and then this year we started to see zero W eight and zero W twelve of very thin mote oils out there in the market. So now the manufacturers asking for much thinner oil. But at the same time we all recognize that thin oil physically in our mind, we say, thin oil, you're going to have less film strength, you're going to rub each other, and you're going to create more problem. So that becomes a challenge for us as manufacturers. We have to design the technology to keep that film strength there at the same time at a better antiware package should you lose that film on that engine. So there are a lot of issues in the industry, but at the same time we're working to mitigate that, and we've developed those things for the past seventy five years and working very closely with the manufacturer as well as the industry to keep up with the trends.
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Speaker 2: I have faith in you, Sean, You're going to figure it out. So can you also tell us a little bit about what is full synthetic motor oil and why is it superior to traditional motor oil.
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Speaker 4: Traditional we call it conventional oil. Synthetic and conventional is a generic marketing terminology, and we say conventional because it was conventionally processed at a refinery. You put crude in the distillation, you refine it, and you go to a certain level of cleanin SA purity. And it's all based on three factors. The amount of saturation meaning how much single bonds does it have. The higher the single bond numbers, the better are the molecule. The amount of viscosity index it has to flow at both cold and hots of better viscosity index and the level of contaminants, which is mainly the sulfur level. Sulfur will cause the oil to age over time. And as you refine better, you refine it to a certain point and you can get to a conventional product. But if you can refine it better, they get to what the industry called a group three product. A group three are better is called synthetic, and synthetic is basically it requires further synthesis, cracking the molecule, breaking up those ring structures, breaking up those double bonds, and trying to convert them into single bonds. So the more single bonds you have, the better the product is able to resist heat, and the better is able to resist contaminations to break down. So a single bond molecule is much stronger in the ability for it to last longer.
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Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, great, Yeah, so not to be all stars are just like us. But as you're talking, I'm thinking about one of the biggest sports in the world, which is NASCAR. So our NASCAR drivers staying on top of their car maintenance just.
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Speaker 4: Like this too, absolutely, because they love cars much more on me, and they have more expensive cars than I do, and so maintenance is crucial. You don't want to have to sit there and try to rebuild the engines. So they care about that because they recognize performance, and they're much more in tune with their vehicles than I will ever hope to be.
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Speaker 3: Well, let's be fair, they have a whole team of people helping them too, right. I mean, no one races NASCAR alone.
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Speaker 4: That's true, they have a whole team. But their personal vehicles, I think they have a part of it. Yes, they probably know, like Jay Leno's garage, he got his whole team to maintain it. But they get their hands into their dirt also because they love that. It's their passion and they don't want to be ten feet away.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, speaking of passion, I mean, you're very passionate about your job. You've shared so much amazing information with us already today. Is there something else fun that you can share with us about it? Are there any cool new technologies in the vehicle lubricant world that you want to tell us about? No pun intended, But what gets your gears going in this world?
00:25:27
Speaker 4: For me, the fun part is talking to people like you guys, talking to the consumer, talking to the users, talking to the enthusiasts that work with us, and that like vehicles and like cars, the technology is what makes me a super nerd. To the consumer, Oil's a brown stuff, but there is difference the same way I go back to that super analogy, Why did you go to your favorites restaurant because of that favorite soup and why has that chef made it better? I think it's the stuff that we've putting Over the years. Oil has been conventional synthetic synthetic plen but the technology in the basal how we make the based stock soup from materials into what we have developed in the last over ten years that we have launched in the marketplace is what we call our GTL gas to liquid based oil. That is our bread butter in making a lot of our premium synthetic lubricants, and that product has so much better. It's better because it has better temperature resistance, it has better oxidation resistance, it has better flow quality of high and low temperatures, it has better ability to pull heat out of the system. And so when I am able to start with a better based stock, I can then focus on the additives and the additive technology. Like I mentioned, I spent over a year and a half looking at just friction modifiers, just one ingredients that we can put into our products. And the oil formulator is kind of like your soup chef. It's finding that perfect balance in that and the technologies that we've had now is nothing compared to what Penzol and all the other guys had did twenty thirty years ago. This is a new science, this is new chemistries. The technology has to catch up with the hardware that's out there, right and the oil has to be there to perform just as hard as those engines are designed to do, major differences in chemistry and the design of the oil. It is a beautiful thing and it's a fun thing.
00:27:20
Speaker 3: Sean final question, what is your favorite soup?
00:27:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so hungry now.
00:27:25
Speaker 4: Now the Vietnamese in me would say Phu fun is a national comfort food. But right now I got chili. I'm from Texas and chili right yeah, Chili is the soup for the day, for the now. But fur I can have fun anytime. Every place I go around the country in North America, I test their fu to see how.
00:27:44
Speaker 2: Good they're fuz is who's winning well?
00:27:47
Speaker 4: Texas is still number one.
00:27:48
Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah, Well, whatever your next meal is, be it souper. Otherwise, I just hope that it is homegrown, locally sourced ingredients and made in the kitchen. It should be like any good motor oil. Wow, and it's John. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge from your extensive research.
00:28:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, it's been fund for me. Thank you for having me.
00:28:12
Speaker 2: We'll see you on the road, all.
00:28:13
Speaker 3: Right, take care.
00:28:20
Speaker 2: I wish I knew as much about anything as Sean knows about oil technology.
00:28:24
Speaker 3: Well, good news. I don't think anyone does, so I think you're good. But luckily we've got another brand new episode coming your way in two weeks.
00:28:32
Speaker 2: Well, Matt, you know that I love learning, so I will very much be looking forward to that, and until then, good luck being a grown up.
00:28:40
Speaker 3: This is a production of Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. Our executive producers are Lea Paumery and Matt Stillo.
00:28:46
Speaker 2: This episode was edited and engineered by Sierra Spreen.
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Speaker 3: We want to think our teammates at Ruby Studio, including Sarah You, Ethan Vixel, Rage, Just Want krasnov Lydia, Kim Amber Smith, Harper Wayne, Debrah Garrett and Andy Kelly bo
Speaker 1: Ruby.
00:00:06
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Grown Up Stuff. I'm Leah Palmery and I'm Matt Stillow and today's episode.
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Speaker 3: Brought to you by Shell Pen's Oil.
00:00:13
Speaker 1: Well, have you.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Thinking differently about your car the next time you're on a joy ride or even just a trip to the grocery store.
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Speaker 3: That's right. And you know, while we talked about general car maintenance in a previous episode, today we'll be chatting with Sean Wynn, a lubricant technical specialist at Shell, and he's going to plumb the depths, as it were, on all things oil changes and what exactly is going on and then engine of yours more than you've probably ever expected to know.
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Speaker 2: That is the truth, Matt. I admittedly knew very little about oil changes and honestly cars in general. But my favorite thing about Sean is not just how much he knows, but how confident and excited he is to talk about the technology of engines and the oils that keep them running. Who knew?
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Speaker 3: Who knew? Sean really explained the ways that we can best take care of our vehicle so that they run their best and last as long as possible.
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Speaker 2: Yes, Matt, because you know what our cars to be thriving too.
00:01:01
Speaker 3: They do. Yeah, and now here Sean.
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Speaker 4: Well, my name is Sean Wynn. I'm a lubricant technical expert for Shell. Been working with Shell for twenty five plus years, been in the industry for more than thirty three years, and my specialty is automotive lubricants. I've spent some time in Greace research, crude all research, formulation research, and so enjoy the time that I've had and look forward to spending a little bit of time with you and your audience.
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Speaker 2: Yay, I mean, I think the first question we have to ask you is what is a lubricant technical expert. I've not seen this title on LinkedIn before, so can you tell us a little bit about what does that even mean for your job?
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Speaker 4: Well, it varies depending on your specialty. Right, I mentioned that I am automotive engine expert. I'm trained to based on my years of experience in formulation for automotive and engine oils. It makes me, I guess you could say, an expert in the automotive engine oils.
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Speaker 2: You're certainly more an expert than I am, and I'm going to venture to guests and say more than Matt is as well. So congratulations to you. Okay, well, we are going to talk to you today about oil changes. I know this is going to sound silly, but I also know I'm not the only one wondering what the answer is to this question. What even is an oil change? What is happening during this process? Why is it necessary for the longevity of our cars and the engine? Feel free to get nerdy and sciency about this. We want to know exactly what is going on in there.
00:02:36
Speaker 4: As you know, we're told over the years to change our engine oils, right, and engine oils if you're going to get nerd up is over time it gets consumed because of combustion products. You're going to have blowbys, basically gases from the combustions and molecules that would come across. And as engine oils get cooked and heated, typically can go up as high as two hundred and sixty degrees up at the three hundred degrees and even that the pistons can go above five hundred degrees, So in a sense, it causes them to age the same way we see our cooking oil. You know, if we use it a couple of times, see it kind of turned dark. And oil has to be there to keep everything lubricated. Oil has to come in and cool the engine. It works with your cooling system and as you change the temperature, and as you increase the temperature, you cause that oil to break down. When you add in contaminants like water, like fuel like air, and carbon monoxide, it ages the oil and degrades the oil. Our whole purpose of oil is a couple of the major fundamental lubricate, protect, keep it cool, and prevent wear, four fundamental things. Past seventy years of engine oil manufacturing, fundamentally, that's what they are, and they've changed over the years based on engine design. We haven't even talked about the additives yet. Say you're piston needs antiwar so that as it moves, it doesn't get worn away and loosen up over time. And so as the oil ages, it use up those additives, You use up those ingredients. You have antioxidants that is there to help keep the oil life longer, but it gets used up. You have antiware components that help to coat the engine so that it becomes a sacrificial layer. You have detergents to help to remove the combustion, to remove the dark material, the soot, the ash, so those material get used up, and it gets to a point when the manufacturer recognized, and we too, the oil manufacturer recognized, it's time to change. It's time to refresh, drop the oil, put new oil in. So hopefully that's a short, long winded answer.
00:04:48
Speaker 2: That's enough of an answer to let us know why you're an expert for sure.
00:04:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And you don't really think about it, But you mentioned kind of like it's not all that different than cooking oil. I think about like, you know, sometimes I'm cooking with oil like thirty minutes and I'll throw some carrots and onions in there, and then like I'll go to like start cooking some meters and they're like, oh, let's get this oil. It's already old. It's been thirty minutes, and I already want to get this oil out of here. So how long do these processes take to like really get to the point where it's degraded and that you are going to want to change it?
00:05:16
Speaker 4: Oh, it depends on many different factors. First, the engine design. Every engine behaves differently the same way when you fry fish versus frying vegetables, right, they cause different interactions and different engines will actually create different messes. Some engines are looser high performance engine versus out everyday media van or regular car. When you have turbos, they create a lot more heat in the oils. When you have different systems in the engine, over time, it ages the oil. At the same time the oil is affected by heat. Let's say you're used to running your car two hundred degrees and you have coolant issues, and it's now running harder by ten degrees celsius. In the root of thumber of the industry is that if you increase the temperature by ten degrees celsius, you basically double the oxidation rate. You're cooking the oil twice as fast. So now you have to change your oil half the mile of time. So it all is variant on the operating viscosity or operating temperature of the engine. Many other factors come to play. There's another issues out there, which we call granny cycle. Those are where our grandmas would just take the car once a week, go to the grocery store or go to church, and then come back home five minutes later. The car barely heat up and then cool back down immediately, and so it condenses all that water accumulates in the oil and short distance driving cycles those actually creates more contaminants build up in the car and ages to oil faster. So there are many different factors along the way. One of my recommendations is that you have those type of cycles where you go to work maybe eight miles and it's less than twenty minutes, take it out for a weekend drive it because it helps to evaporate all the fuel that's burned up, all the water. It actually helps you extend the life of that oil.
00:07:12
Speaker 3: And how long would you recommend going for a quick driving.
00:07:14
Speaker 4: Minimum twenty five minutes, so a weekend drive, you know, for a highway drive, keep it at constant temperature for about twenty five minutes. That should be enough to burn a lot of those contaminants off.
00:07:25
Speaker 3: That's so interesting because I would have thought would have been the opposite, where like you know, they're not using the car at all, and so see, this is why we talk to the experts. Okay, so if it varies differently between different types of drivers, different types of cars, then how do we really know when we should be taking our cars in to get the oil changed.
00:07:41
Speaker 4: That's a good question. First of all, every car owner needs to read their owner's manual. An owner's manual will tell first of all, what viscosities to use, what type of specifications you need, and what's the recommended oil drained base on your driving stop. We call it regular driving style or the granny cycle. If you're towing, you're doing a lot of heat driving, you're driving in the dusty climates, those of what we'll call severe driving. So those are some of the determines. If the owner's manual say three thousand miles, I would say do three thousand miles. Now, that is all based on the experience of the manufacturer based on that engine. They've done internal studies to calculate that based on the suggested drain. The oil capacity also has a lot to do with drain interval. So as the manufacturer designed that oil, they make a good calculation based on driving cycle, speed, time of driving. All that is calculated. That's why a lot of the modern cars now have the Dumby light it's time to change your oil. It's ninety percent. My car right now says sixty percent, So I'm keeping an eye on it. Right now. As soon as I hit fifteen percent, I'm gread they changed my oil.
00:08:51
Speaker 3: So you're a technical guy. You gave a technical answer, and I love that because I'm a technical guy. I do all the audio here, and so I always tell people read the manual. Read the manual, read menu. Here's the thing, you know the sean I know this. No one reads the manual. So is there a good rule of like for example, Like, I have a motorcycle, and my kind of rule of thumb is basically every spring, I've been driving it all winter, it gets all mucked up. I get it washed and I get it serviced and checked out and they change the oil then and I do that like once a year. And I'm probably more of a granny driver actually, weirdly, I only take it out, like me once a week, but I'll go for a while, like an hour or two. And so is the year, like, is that a good rule of thumb or what's the rule of thumb?
00:09:30
Speaker 4: Okay, So I'm a motorcycle driver too. I do it twice a year. I recommend twice a year. I don't care. That's just me. I change it in the fall and I change it in the spring. Most manufacturers recommendation is either mileage or time, whichever comes first. So if you're a highway driver and you drive two hours to work a day, the mileage accumulation happened first. And then, of course some of the premium vehicles, Mercedes and some of the others, they have a twelve month program. They have a twelve month oil. But the oil is a premium product, it has longer reservoir capacity, so they have a longer recommendation oil change. At the same time, if you're driving a premium car, your oild changes is not sixty bucks or one hundred bucks. It's a couple hundred dollars, so it pays for it based on the volume and the oil that you're buying. A lot of us nowadays, we don't grow up with full service gas stations anymore. Where the guy popped your hood, check the oil dipstick and make sure the oil level is high. It is crucial that we as consumers check our oil level once a month. You know, it's just that a little old ring there. Just pull it out and check it. Because a lot of the smaller engine vehicles have very little capacity. It has maybe four four and a half courts, and you can see vehicles losing a court. So if you lose a court you're more than twenty five percent close to twenty five percent lost in oil, So now you have less oil that would actually help to support and keep that engine clean. So having oil at the optimal condition levels is crucial in maintaining the life of that oil. The color doesn't tell you that it's turning bad. The color tells you that the oil is doing its job. It's keeping that engine clean. The engine create all that mess, and so it's trying to clean it like dawn and scrubbing your dishes. So the oil is doing the same thing. Those additives in the oil it's called detergents and dispersings, and basically that's what it is. It's helped to clean up the walls of the engines and the parts of the engine, and it keeps them from binding up together making big particles, so they stay small. They're wrapped up in the dispersing, and then when you drain the oil, they all come out. For those who want to make sure that oil lasts a long time by a more premium product.
00:11:51
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a quick.
00:11:52
Speaker 1: Break, and we're back with more grown up stuff.
00:12:03
Speaker 3: How do I don't? So let's say let's come time to change your oil. Why is it best to go into the shop and actually get it done? Like, what are the professionals doing that? We're just not looking for it.
00:12:16
Speaker 4: I think the main reason that people go to a professional shop is you don't know what you're doing.
00:12:24
Speaker 3: That's fair. I rarely do know what I'm doing.
00:12:26
Speaker 4: I change all my oil at home, okay. And so it's all based on your spars and your comfort level. And if you have the tools, they change out a filter because the oil filter is there to trap those large particles, and the particles has to beyond well, I'm going to go nerd on you. You know above ten or twenty microns are the big particles who were kept trapped by the molecules by the filter because those big molecules that size would actually scrape the engine and cause a scar, and those scars are unrepairable. So the filters are there to do that. So change your filters when you change your oil is highly recommended. And they drain about eighty to ninety percent of the oil to come out of the vehicle, and then you replenish a fresh oil, replenish fresh additives into the car. All those basically allows a car to feel clean again. And if you are an oil nerd and an engine nerd like myself, you can feel and hear the sound difference of a new oil change in your car. It sounds much quieter, especially when you buy a premium synthetic like you know. For me, Okay, I'm a shell guy, so I change it with Penzel platinum products, all the type, and I see major sound improvement in lowering the sound and the smoothest of my engine just from a new oil change.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: Sean, I got to tell you, I feel like I'm usually just driving along and singing to Taylor Swift, and I did not know all of this was like happening in the engine while that was also happening. So we're learning a lot clearly.
00:14:00
Speaker 3: So how long can we expect it to take when we go in? And actually, how much typically does an oil change cost if you're getting it professionally done.
00:14:07
Speaker 4: Well, you know in Texas it's a lot cheaper than you guys up in New York. I can tell you that you can go to a small shop and you can get an old change for twenty bucks. But you don't know the quality of the oil that you're getting. You don't know the quality of the filter that you're going to get. To go to a premium place like one of our partners, which is Jiffy Loop, which is nationwide, you get a better product at the same time, hopefully, and from my experience is that you get a little bit better service. You have a variety of different shops who advertise the five minute oil change and they do twenty point inspection, check on your fluids and all the other stuff go to the dealership. It all depends on your comfort level and what you feel is someone that you can trust. I think choosing a good shop is having a shop that you can go and have a conversation instead of coming in and just whip in whip out. I think you get better product, you get better service by having a good conversation what's your recommendation, and the knowledgeability of the counterstaff, of the management along the way, and you kind of have to do a little bit of your own research. The same way you search for a doctor, you should search for a good shop that does that. Because your car is the second most expensive item that you purchase in your life other than your house. Right and of course nowadays you know that since COVID people are keeping their cars longer. They're keeping their cars almost up to fifteen years now and helping to extend that life. And so making sure that you pick a place, change it, will regularly, maintain it regularly. Then your engine and your car will perform the way that you hope it to do and be dependable for you in the long run.
00:15:53
Speaker 3: So you walk into an autopart shop and there's lots of different kinds of oils. And let's say that for most of my life I have been using a product that one of the other guys makes. What could you say that would convince me that the product you make, shell pens oil is superior.
00:16:13
Speaker 4: Well, you're own my wheelhouse now, right. It gets confusing. We walk into a store and you see all the different brands, right, But for the most consumer, we're thinking, Okay, I grew up with this brand, and I trust this brand because my dad or my grandfather said this is the brand for me, and that's fine and dandy, and I think a lot of that is personal experience along the way. At the same time, do a little bit of research on the oil. You know, Internet nowadays is so good in giving unbiased opinion, So educate yourself. I think that's the first thing, and having a shop that does that. Now, if you're going to talk about penzil is the formulation and the oil manufacturer. Some consumer because they are I guess budget minded, they go for the generic brands and that's fine, and they meet the specs of the manufacturer, and that's what they're going to do. They can meet the specs. They are just enough, the same way we buy generic medicine. It's just enough. But if we want the performance, and you want a good quality performance all, then you got to go with some of the majors because they put a lot of effort in the research.
00:17:21
Speaker 3: I know.
00:17:21
Speaker 4: I work at the largest research center for shell globally in the world in Houston, and so we do extensive research in looking at the ingredients. I spent over a year just to trying to find one ingredient to add into our oil. I spent another year just to study how fuel affect oil. I spent another year just looking at how carbon builds up in the oil. So hopefully the consumer can see the performance at the end when they formulated, and that's what a premium brand oil will help you to do. It will help you to meet the specs and the requirements of those particular engines, and the relationships that we have with the manufacturers with the industry helps us to understand what's out there, and we developed and we tailor it based on the chemistries that were developed over the years.
00:18:10
Speaker 3: It's just wild hearing you say that, like the amount of work that goes into this. You're talking about a year researching and in creating it, a year researching fuels impact on the oil. I mean, like that's just something you don't think about every day, but it's crazy to hear how much thought and effort goes into it.
00:18:24
Speaker 2: You can buy your own oil and take it with you.
00:18:26
Speaker 4: Right absolutely, And that's what I recommend. If you can find a shop that say hey, I'm going to bring my own oil and filter, just charge me the fee. That's the way I do it. If I get lazy, I'll go to a shop, I'll pick my bottle of oil and filter and I'll bring to a shop and say, hey, it's my oil. Charge me the fee for the service and disposal fee. I just look for a good deal whenever we have promotions within Penzil, and then I'll stock up on it and you know, I got four cars and a bike. I got changed on a regular basis. Oh well, I got to change my kids cars. They won't change the oil, so dat do?
00:19:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, Well they're lucky to have you.
00:19:05
Speaker 4: But they're down there with me though.
00:19:07
Speaker 2: Okay, good, yeah, show them. Hold's done.
00:19:09
Speaker 3: Another thing that can be kind of confusing is the numbers and letters of the kind of delineate the different types of oil. So you know, you walk into a store and you see things like ten W thirty, five W thirty. I always think of WD fourty, which is not a car oil. But what are some of these letters and numbers give us a sense of what they mean and what different types of oil are used for.
00:19:33
Speaker 4: When it comes to viscosity, you want different textures. Engine oils over the years has gotten really thin if you look at engines whenin the last ten years they're multi weight viscosities because they are designing it to be used all year round, so when the winter times to come, it flows properly when there's cold, and when it's hot it behaves as a thicker oil. Now, so let's describe your example. Five W thirty The W stands for winter. I mean the oil will behave in a sense a five winter weight product when that engine is cold, but as the engine heat up, that oil will thicken up to a thirty to give you a simpler viscosity when the engine's cold, same thickness in a sense when the engine is cold as when the engine is hot. So that multiweight design is designed to do that to give the engine proper flow and viscosity film thickness. So the viscosity is important to make sure that when you look at your manual, you already know what type of viscosity you need. So your car that asks for a five W twenty motor oil should use a five W twenty motor oil. And actually the second number is the most crucial number for you to shop when you buy the oil. So if car costs for a five to twenty, you can practically use a five to twenty oil, and you can even use a zero W twenty oil is suitable. A zero weight oil or zero winter weight mean that it flows better at the colder temperatures. I mean they can handle colder temperatures better than a five winter weight. But the second number is crucial in giving your car proper protection during operation.
00:21:11
Speaker 3: So I'm curious, would it be wise then to in the winter to use a different kind of oil that we might use in the summer.
00:21:17
Speaker 4: Some manufacturers actually do. Some manufacturer will tell you to use a zero twenty or a zero thirty in the winter and then to use a five to twenty in the summer. Personally, I recommend the zero twenty all year round. You're going to get quicker the delivery of the oil to the upper parts of the engine faster, But as soon as the oil heats up, it behaves as a twenty weight. And as modern engines are coming out now, they're coming out with engines asking for much thin oil. In the fast five years, we saw zero W sixteen weight oils for a lot of the hybrids, and then this year we started to see zero W eight and zero W twelve of very thin mote oils out there in the market. So now the manufacturers asking for much thinner oil. But at the same time we all recognize that thin oil physically in our mind, we say, thin oil, you're going to have less film strength, you're going to rub each other, and you're going to create more problem. So that becomes a challenge for us as manufacturers. We have to design the technology to keep that film strength there at the same time at a better antiware package should you lose that film on that engine. So there are a lot of issues in the industry, but at the same time we're working to mitigate that, and we've developed those things for the past seventy five years and working very closely with the manufacturer as well as the industry to keep up with the trends.
00:22:41
Speaker 2: I have faith in you, Sean, You're going to figure it out. So can you also tell us a little bit about what is full synthetic motor oil and why is it superior to traditional motor oil.
00:22:52
Speaker 4: Traditional we call it conventional oil. Synthetic and conventional is a generic marketing terminology, and we say conventional because it was conventionally processed at a refinery. You put crude in the distillation, you refine it, and you go to a certain level of cleanin SA purity. And it's all based on three factors. The amount of saturation meaning how much single bonds does it have. The higher the single bond numbers, the better are the molecule. The amount of viscosity index it has to flow at both cold and hots of better viscosity index and the level of contaminants, which is mainly the sulfur level. Sulfur will cause the oil to age over time. And as you refine better, you refine it to a certain point and you can get to a conventional product. But if you can refine it better, they get to what the industry called a group three product. A group three are better is called synthetic, and synthetic is basically it requires further synthesis, cracking the molecule, breaking up those ring structures, breaking up those double bonds, and trying to convert them into single bonds. So the more single bonds you have, the better the product is able to resist heat, and the better is able to resist contaminations to break down. So a single bond molecule is much stronger in the ability for it to last longer.
00:24:12
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, great, Yeah, so not to be all stars are just like us. But as you're talking, I'm thinking about one of the biggest sports in the world, which is NASCAR. So our NASCAR drivers staying on top of their car maintenance just.
00:24:25
Speaker 4: Like this too, absolutely, because they love cars much more on me, and they have more expensive cars than I do, and so maintenance is crucial. You don't want to have to sit there and try to rebuild the engines. So they care about that because they recognize performance, and they're much more in tune with their vehicles than I will ever hope to be.
00:24:43
Speaker 3: Well, let's be fair, they have a whole team of people helping them too, right. I mean, no one races NASCAR alone.
00:24:50
Speaker 4: That's true, they have a whole team. But their personal vehicles, I think they have a part of it. Yes, they probably know, like Jay Leno's garage, he got his whole team to maintain it. But they get their hands into their dirt also because they love that. It's their passion and they don't want to be ten feet away.
00:25:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, speaking of passion, I mean, you're very passionate about your job. You've shared so much amazing information with us already today. Is there something else fun that you can share with us about it? Are there any cool new technologies in the vehicle lubricant world that you want to tell us about? No pun intended, But what gets your gears going in this world?
00:25:27
Speaker 4: For me, the fun part is talking to people like you guys, talking to the consumer, talking to the users, talking to the enthusiasts that work with us, and that like vehicles and like cars, the technology is what makes me a super nerd. To the consumer, Oil's a brown stuff, but there is difference the same way I go back to that super analogy, Why did you go to your favorites restaurant because of that favorite soup and why has that chef made it better? I think it's the stuff that we've putting Over the years. Oil has been conventional synthetic synthetic plen but the technology in the basal how we make the based stock soup from materials into what we have developed in the last over ten years that we have launched in the marketplace is what we call our GTL gas to liquid based oil. That is our bread butter in making a lot of our premium synthetic lubricants, and that product has so much better. It's better because it has better temperature resistance, it has better oxidation resistance, it has better flow quality of high and low temperatures, it has better ability to pull heat out of the system. And so when I am able to start with a better based stock, I can then focus on the additives and the additive technology. Like I mentioned, I spent over a year and a half looking at just friction modifiers, just one ingredients that we can put into our products. And the oil formulator is kind of like your soup chef. It's finding that perfect balance in that and the technologies that we've had now is nothing compared to what Penzol and all the other guys had did twenty thirty years ago. This is a new science, this is new chemistries. The technology has to catch up with the hardware that's out there, right and the oil has to be there to perform just as hard as those engines are designed to do, major differences in chemistry and the design of the oil. It is a beautiful thing and it's a fun thing.
00:27:20
Speaker 3: Sean final question, what is your favorite soup?
00:27:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so hungry now.
00:27:25
Speaker 4: Now the Vietnamese in me would say Phu fun is a national comfort food. But right now I got chili. I'm from Texas and chili right yeah, Chili is the soup for the day, for the now. But fur I can have fun anytime. Every place I go around the country in North America, I test their fu to see how.
00:27:44
Speaker 2: Good they're fuz is who's winning well?
00:27:47
Speaker 4: Texas is still number one.
00:27:48
Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah, Well, whatever your next meal is, be it souper. Otherwise, I just hope that it is homegrown, locally sourced ingredients and made in the kitchen. It should be like any good motor oil. Wow, and it's John. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge from your extensive research.
00:28:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, it's been fund for me. Thank you for having me.
00:28:12
Speaker 2: We'll see you on the road, all.
00:28:13
Speaker 3: Right, take care.
00:28:20
Speaker 2: I wish I knew as much about anything as Sean knows about oil technology.
00:28:24
Speaker 3: Well, good news. I don't think anyone does, so I think you're good. But luckily we've got another brand new episode coming your way in two weeks.
00:28:32
Speaker 2: Well, Matt, you know that I love learning, so I will very much be looking forward to that, and until then, good luck being a grown up.
00:28:40
Speaker 3: This is a production of Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. Our executive producers are Lea Paumery and Matt Stillo.
00:28:46
Speaker 2: This episode was edited and engineered by Sierra Spreen.
00:28:49
Speaker 3: We want to think our teammates at Ruby Studio, including Sarah You, Ethan Vixel, Rage, Just Want krasnov Lydia, Kim Amber Smith, Harper Wayne, Debrah Garrett and Andy Kelly bo
