Seems to me that there's a potential problem if we're using the same word to mean different things. Like "synthetic". From a
Bob Is The Oil Guy - Liquimoly Leichtlauf High Tech 5W40 thread:
Quote:
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As you may know it's illegal in Germany to state that an oil is "synthetic" when it's a group 3 base stock. It is ok in the US to state that it's "synthetic" when it's a group 3 base stock. Years ago Mobil was sued in a US court because it claimed that Mobil 1 was synthetic even though it's a group 3 base stock that had been hydrocracked and the resulting polymers "re-assembled" into a "synthetic" oil. Mobil won the court case. However, a similar suit in a German court ended with the ruling that Mobil's process to create a "synthetic" oil does not result in a truly synthetic oil.
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The (very, very) long "oil thread" here years ago covered this, in explaining why the US "Mobil 1" formulation was not the same as "Mobil 1" sold in Europe. Because the Euro market Mobil 1 was actually a full synthetic.
No reason why "synthetic" oil sold in the US couldn't actually be. However, it also might not meet the definition elsewhere, so caveat emptor.
Found that thread interesting - as it highlighted that Liqui-Moly Leichtlauf High Tech 5W40 - despite being German made and labelled "fully synthetic" when sold in the US - doesn't use the word ""Vollsynthetisches" on the German data sheet. As not a full synthetic according to the German definition...