Note that the courts ruled that SYNTHETIC is a marketing term and not a technical term. Castrol brought this to a head when they introduced Syntec (which isn't synthetic in my book) and Mobil sued them. I totally disagree with that ruling but I don't make the laws. The Group III oils used in Syntec and it's ilk are much cheaper than the true synthetics so most of the industry (including most Mobil 1 formulations) has followed suit. If you can't beat them join them.
From the first link:
In the late 1990s, Castrol started selling an oil made from Group III base oil and called it SynTec Full Synthetic. Mobil sued Castrol, asserting that this oil was not synthetic, but simply a highly refined petroleum oil, and therefore it was false advertising to call it synthetic. In 1999, Mobil lost their lawsuit. It was decided that the word "synthetic" was a marketing term and referred to properties, not to production methods or ingredients. Castrol continues to make SynTec out of Group III base oils, that is highly purified mineral oil with most all of the cockroach bits removed.
Shortly after Mobil lost their lawsuit, most oil companies started reformulating their synthetic oils to use Group III base stocks instead of PAOs or diester stocks as their primary component. Most of the "synthetic oil" you can buy today is actually mostly made of this highly-distilled and purified dino-juice called Group III oil. Group III base oils cost about half as much as the synthetics. By using a blend of mostly Group III oils and a smaller amount of "true" synthetics, the oil companies can produce a product that has nearly the same properties as the "true" synthetics, and nearly the same cost as the Group III oil. The much more expensive traditional synthetics are now available in their pure forms only in more expensive and harder to obtain oils. To the best of my knowledge, Delvac-1, AMSOil, Redline, and Motul 5100 are the only oils made from pure traditional synthetics.
FWIW, I use the Amsoil AMF 10W-40 & PureOne PL14612 filter.
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