My outlook, and it may be slanted a bit, because I am just naturally very skeptical, is to look at reviews with an eye on who stands to profit by believing what you read.
person 'A' will gain a great deal if you go by what they say.
person 'B' has nothing to gain or lose if you believe or disbelieve what he says
Who has the most to gain by hyping up the test results? people who are trying to sell you something are not unbiased, they will choose the terms that shed the best light on their product. people who will gain nothing either way are far more likely to provide honest information.
I prefer using oil and changing it regularly, I am not extremely picky about brand, I am picky about what's in it, don't like and won't use quaker state or pennzoil in anything because every motor I've opened up that's run them has had a seriously nasty dried foamy grunge layer inside, (QS worse one, they could have changed, quit using them years ago, but I don't feel like testing it) prefer Valvoline and Kendall because every motor that I've torn into that's run them has been pretty clean inside, very easy to see the texture of the castings etc and I'd prefer the oil to keep the engine clean, not form a buildup inside.
synthetics used to be true synthetics, most of them have become like orange juice, at just about any store you can buy orange juice that will proudly display "100% pure orange juice" in big bold letters accross the top, with the phrase in small letters towards the bottom "made from reconstituted orange juice, contains artificial flavors and colors" all you need is x% to call it 'real'
which brings up an oddity, a homebuilt plane requires 51% home fabricated parts to be classed as homebuilt, any less and it's a kit and needs to follow different rules, but food and other products only require I think it's 10% natural ingredients to avoid being called artificial, what gives with that?
ken
