philosophyonwheels.com

Earlier this month it was announced that Saab Automobile’s ownership was returning home to Scandinavia.  The stuff has hit the fan for GM and plans have been announced for Saab to be sold to a bunch of rich Norwegians and Koenigsegg (a swedish supercar maker).  Koenigsegg makes the vaunted CCX.  “It is so choice.  If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”  (Homage to Ferris Bueller.)

Saab has a rather narrow market here in the United States, and mainly in New England.  These cars are designed for gorgeous soccer mom’s who need to drive through four months of snow.  (These are very well balanced cars.)

Saab’s market share in the U.S. burgeoned in the early ’80s while Saab was importing a lot of high-end convertibles.  U.S. automakers were shying away from the convertible market because the political climate at the time hinted that regulators might ban convertibles, thus leaving some very low hanging fruit for Saab to pluck.  And they plucked with some very cool cars: stylish and coveted European convertibles with impressive sports packages, notably the SPG or Special Performance Group.  This trim was originally to be called the Aero, but G.M. controlled the trademark at the time.  (But today’s high-end Saab’s feature the Aero badge.)

Saab was first an aerospace and defense company producing airplanes for Sverige (that’s Swedish for Sweden) and eventually got into automobile design and production.  Hence the current slogan “born from jets.”  The aerospace connection is a huge component of the Saab brand.  The front grille on every Saab has always had the styling cues inspired from a jet intake.  And to celebrate the divorce from GM, Saab is toting a special 9-5 dubbed the Griffen Edition.  Griffen comes from the current active service fighter jet produced by Saab, the delta winged JAS 39 Gripen.  I’m sure executives decided the name had be be Anglicized to eliminate pronunciation confusion.  For example: “Is the ‘i’ supposed to be short or long, I’m confused and just want to buy an ostentatious SUV.”  

The Saab emblem actually has the head of the mythical Gripen (or Griffen) sporting a crown.  The Gripen is a component of numerous municipal emblems across the country of Sweden.  I’m hoping to see more Swedish culture blended into the Saab brand.  How about a nice and practical 9-5 station-wagon that includes universal health care for the owner, it will be called the Egalitärian edition.  Or the SUV, 9-7X, could be painted a mysterious matte black and each time the door opens ominous music can play, this will be known as the Bergman 9-7th X Seal.  I have my deposit in my hand already exchanged into Kronar.

But now a performance oriented company, Koenigsegg, has a controlling interest in Saab.  I am positive that a resuscitation of the brand will include joint development of some very cool cars.  Possibly even some homologated beauties intended for the track.  (Homologated means it will conform to standards and specifications to fit into a particular racing class.)  In my opinion the future is very bright for Saab and I can’t wait to see what happens.  Now excuse me while I hop on iTunes and download some Abba…

Synthetic motor oil.  That sounds like space age stuff.  It sounds illicit with even just a tiny amount of embellishment.  It sounds like something a professional baseball player might “accidentally” put in his car engine and then incur a 50 game suspension, or be forced to plead the fifth in front of a congressional inquiry.

Synthetic motor oil is what places like Gypy Lube try to up-sell to unsuspecting patrons who are innocently looking for cheap (and necessary) preventative maintenance on their cars.  Instead of paying $25 for a conventional oil change, it’s completely possibly to have synthetic motor oil pumped into your car and be charged $71 billion dollars at the counter.  Holy bailout Batman!

Here’s the real story.  Gasoline is not perfect.  It contains many contaminants and unwanted particles that can build up inside the engine.  Engine oil acts as a passive cleanser to lift these unwanted particles and hold them until the oil filter can screen them out.  The filter or the oil doesn’t last forever and it is a universal automotive recommendation to change your oil and filter every 3,000 miles or 3 months.  

Conventional engine oil is distilled from crude oil pumped out from beneath places like Saudi Arabia.  The resulting engine oil has lots of different sized molecules, all of which were formed millions of years ago.  Synthetic oil is made from a chemical process in a laboratory resulting in a nearly all the molecules having the same size.  (But it’s expensive.)  This uniformity gives the oil special chemical properties that allow it to hold more of the unwanted or contaminant particles in solution, potentially extending the amount of time between oil changes.  The synthetic oil also has less viscosity, or it glides more freely between engine parts to possibly allow for better performance and gas mileage (but typically only in high-performance engines).  

Another job of the engine oil is to dissipate heat.  When engine oil comes in contact with a relatively hot piece of the engine, heat will be exchanged to the oil.  Synthetic oil does this more efficiently because of its uniform nature.  (For example, female socialites would be efficiently more annoying if they were all Paris Hilton, fortunately their diversity contributes to their tolerability…barely.)

Drawing from my informed wisdom, I opine that the average driver does not need to switch to synthetic oil to protect their engine.  Conventional oil does the job just fine.  But if you truly need something to talk about at the water cooler, be my guest and choose from among the following well branded choices: Mobil 1, Castrol Syntec, Valvoline SynPower, Pennzoil Platinum Synthetic, Quaker State Ultimate Durability Full Synthetic, and Lucas Synthetic High Performance.  The award for best product name goes to Pennzoil for naming a transition metal that has nothing to do with the product except the label.

So who would benefit from synthetic oil?  Basically anyone who spends time on a race track.  And for everyday drivers who own cars with turbochargers I would recommend it.  The turbo is a very particular piece of equipment that uses the engine’s oil to dissipate heat and maintain lubrication.  The turbines in a turbo are designed to spin in excess of 80,000 RPM (that’s more than five times the red line of a motorcycle engine!).  You don’t want this to seize up.  The greater viscosity will help guard against this in cold and hot oil environments.

While we’re talking about oil, let’s cover that mysterious 10W-30 label and what it means.  The “10W” stands for winter and the “10″ is an indication of the lowest temperature your car will be able to pump the oil from a cold start.  (As determined by the Society of Automotive Engineers or the SAE.)  The “30″ indicates the viscosity of the oil at 212° F.

Now wasn’t that fun?  I’m parched.  Who’s up for some Lipton Platinum Ice Tea?