With the price of gas has shooting up to about $4 per gallon, it is little wonder that people are looking for ways to cut spending on fuel and other things and also stretch their income so that they can stay within bounds of their earnings and budget.

Using synthetic motor oil in your vehicle is one way to affect savings, which even if small, eventually add up substantially. Truck drivers, and owners of commercial vehicles and fleet owners can affect substantially significant savings on fuel use and maintenance of their vehicles. Questions relevant to the subject are:

• How does one actually save on fuel by the use of synthetic lubricants and synthetic motor oil?

• What are the kinds of savings that can be affected with their use as against lubricants from petroleum based products?

• What other advantages can one expect with the use of such products?

When the engine of a vehicle is not working to optimum capacity, it consumes more fuel. Whatever be the lubricants used, petrol-based or synthetic, they too have a life and with time lose their viscosity and thereby their lubricating quality. When they are fresh their lubricating quality or viscosity is also high and any vehicle engine will work to its highest levels of efficiency. Lubricating quality reduces over time because of the heat produced when a vehicle runs. Burning of fuel by any vehicle and its efficiency is directly proportional to the viscosity of lubricant used.

The slight edge that synthetic motor oils have over petroleum based lubricants is their ability to retain viscosity over a longer period and this directly affects the running of an engine, reducing fuel consumption

When changed properly and regularly, synthetic lubricants protect the engine from wear and tear increasing its life, and also helping it to run to optimum efficiency longer. Considering all this in relation to the life of a vehicle means economizing on fuel usage and thus saving money on diesel or gas.

Some other savings are as follows:

Per unit cost of synthetic motor oils is more than their petroleum-based counterparts. But with longer intervals between oil changes they can help to offset the amount spent initially on oil. While this could be twice of thrice the cost of petroleum-based lubricants, the oil change interval is as much as 35000 miles as compared to 3000 to 5000 miles that is normal for conventional oils. In short even though synthetic lubricants cost thrice as much as conventional oils, they can affect savings up to seven times more, because they last that much longer!

Any vehicle owner of truck driver saves on overall cost plus the cost of oil change too! The period between oil changes when using synthetic lubricants ensures their longer viscosity helping the engine to operate longer at maximum efficiency levels when compared to the loss of efficiency several times when petroleum based products are used, as these lose their lubricating ability over many cycles.

Most of us today look beyond the money spent on lubricants and fuel because we are environment conscious. Bear in mind that petroleum is getting scarcer and is not renewable, whereas using synthetic oils means reducing maintenance costs, keeping a vehicle’s efficiency high and permitting use of a product that is not petroleum dependent.

Many believe that using indigenously prepared synthetic oils can reduce America’s dependence on oil from foreign countries and make political or economic statements to that effect.

Users of single vehicles will not be much affected by this; not as much as those who run a business that extensively uses vehicles like fleet owners, lawn mover or chainsaw operators, truck drivers and RV owners. They can effectively influence others and create awareness about synthetic lubricants to save more on fuel and keep vehicles and tools in good condition, while ensuring their longer life and efficiency.